Iteration: The Perks and Pitfalls of Talking Too Much
by m81170
Summary: Jobless, penniless, college dropout Edward takes a chance on a Craigslist job listing to be the face of Jasper's new company. An unlikely friendship blossoms over pancakes and ketchup but is tested when a saucy new waitress catches Edward's eye. Too bad she's the press, and Edward can't afford to be scooped. Life is hard for an ex-Russian-Literature-Major turned professional liar.
1. A Lesson in Persuasion

**Iteration: The Perks and Pitfalls of Talking Too Much**

Disclaimer: Any _Twilight_ characters that may appear in this story belong to Stephenie Meyer. I adopted this plot bunny from my dear friend and beta, xsecretxkeeperx, who was going to idiotically throw it away. The remainder is my original work. No reproduction is allowed without my written consent.

**A/N:** This story is complete and will be posting one chapter per night for nine nights. Information about updates to _An Introduction to Swirl and Daisy_ can be found on my profile.

An endless thank you to **xsecretxkeeperx** and **MariahajilE** for all of the hard work they poured into this story. They made these words pretty for you. I want to keep gushing, but I also want you to read the story. These ladies are astounding, wonderful, fantastic people. Okay, I shall go gush them out on Twitter. Enjoy!

_**. . .**_

Not Exactly a Prologue, But Definitely Not a Chapter:_ A Lesson in Persuasion_

_**. . .**_

**Craigslist. com**

_**Seeking Capable Sales Representative**_

* * *

Date: 2010-11-04, 3:43PM PST Reply to: job-ptext-2045558325 {at} craigslist. org

* * *

Expanding Internet company seeks talented sales person in Seattle area.

Must be charismatic, personable, and available.

Acting experience and an attractive physique are preferable.

Age range is 20-26.

Please send resume complete with prior job experience, employment recommendations, and character references to aliceknowsall {at} bite. com.

_Location: Seattle  
_ _Compensation: To be negotiated  
_ _This is a full-time job. _ _Principals only. Recruiters, please do not contact this job poster. _

_**. . .**_

**RE: Craigslist Job Posting**

From: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} yahoo. com)  
To: aliceknowsall {at} bite. com

Thu 11/04/10, 3:59 PM

* * *

Hello,

I'm contacting you in regard to your posting on Craigslist about a sales position in your company.

I think you will find I have all of the mandatory qualifications you listed, as I am charismatic, amiable, and have all of the time in the world. As for acting experience, I do not have much. I did, however, play the White Rabbit in a highly acclaimed school production of _Alice in Wonderland_.

I've attached my resume to this email, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you for your time,

Edward A. Cullen

_**. . .**_

**RE: RE: Craigslist Job Posting**

From: Jasper Whitlock (aliceknowsall {at} bite. com)  
To: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} yahoo. com)

11/04/10, 4:05 PM

* * *

Dear Edward A. Cullen,

You didn't mention whether you were attractive or not.

Please respond ASAP.

Jasper C. Whitlock

_**. . .**_

**RE: RE: RE: Craigslist Posting**

From: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} yahoo. com)  
To: Jasper Whitlock (aliceknowsall {at} bite. com)

Thu 11/04/10, 4:11 PM

* * *

Hello, Mr. Whitlock.

I'll let you be the judge. I've attached a recent photo of myself.

Sincerely,

Edward A. Cullen

_**. . .**_

**RE: RE: RE: RE: Craigslist Job Posting**

From: Jasper Whitlock (aliceknowsall {at} bite. com)  
To: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} yahoo. com)

Thu 11/04/10, 4:14 PM

* * *

Dear Edward A. Cullen,

Do you like pancakes?

Jasper C. Whitlock

_**. . .**_

**RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Craigslist Posting**

From: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} yahoo. com)  
To: Jasper Whitlock (aliceknowsall {at} bite. com)

Thu 11/04/10, 4:18 PM

* * *

Hello, Mr. Whitlock.

Yes, I do.

Edward A. Cullen

_**. . .**_

**RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: RE: Craigslist Job Posting**

From: Jasper Whitlock (aliceknowsall {at} bite. com)  
To: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} yahoo. com)

Thu 11/04/10, 4:21 PM

* * *

Dear Edward A. Cullen,

Please meet me at the IHOP on E. Madison Street at 11:30 A.M. Friday afternoon.

I'm sure it will be a pleasure to meet you.

Jasper C. Whitlock

_**. . .**_

It was like a public service announcement about why one should never meet people over the Internet.

"_You're_ Jasper Whitlock?" Edward croaked.

"Just hear me out."

_Oh, I am so fucked_, Edward thought. "Dude, I cannot be here right now." He scanned the restaurant, paranoid. "Do you know what happens to adult men who interact with little boys they meet over the Net?"

"This isn't some _Dateline_ special, so take a pill. And also, I'm almost eleven years old," the kid said, pulling out a folder from his backpack.

"You know that doesn't make a difference, right?"

"Look, Mr. Cullen, this is still a job interview."

_He cannot be serious._ "You cannot be serious!" Edward said, his voice reaching an indignant octave.

The kid pouted, setting the folder down on the table and glancing up at Edward from behind large, black-framed glasses. "Please, hear me out, and if you still aren't interested, then we'll part with no hard feelings. Just… please."

A brief moment of indecision gave the kid an opening to latch onto Edward's arm. "Please! _Pa_-lease. Pleeeease. Uh, _por favor_. Pretty please…"

Smiling coolly and shaking his head in a "those darn kids" sort of way, Edward tugged away from the kid and took a step toward the door, hoping to let the curious onlookers see that the show was over, which, of course, backfired.

The kid slid from the seat cushion, collapsed to his knees, and clasped his hands together in front of him. "Oh, please, PLEASE, sir! I'm begging here. Please don't leave. Just hear what I have to say. Please, please, please!"

_At least I'll be wearing my best suit for my mugshot_, Edward thought as the disapproving glares of the patrons forced him into the booth. He shushed the kid and tried to reassure him, but Edward's panic melted into awed disbelief as the kid scraped himself off the floor with a triumphant smirk.

"You've done that before," Edward stated, wondering how many poor Craigslist schmucks this kid had scammed.

"Not personally. Just seen it in the movies."

"Which movies?"

"Down to business. Here is my proposition." In the folder the kid handed to Edward were several printouts of charts, outlines, and animated characters, none of which made any sense to Edward. "I've created the vampire version of _World of Warcraft_."

An order of pancakes and bacon landed in front of the kid, who then doused the pancakes with ketchup in lieu of syrup. Edward was sure it had to be some kind of symbolism for his life. In an effort to distract himself from gagging, he asked what _World of Warcraft_ was.

The kid's glasses magnified his thunderstruck eyes when he looked up from the heaping mess on his plate. "You don't know what _World of Warcraft_ is?"

"Have you been livin' under a rock?" the waitress, an older woman who Edward hadn't realized was still standing there, asked at the same time.

Edward looked between the two of them at a loss. "Yeah. Because I have a life," he lied. Three months ago, Edward had dropped out of school due to financial difficulties and had spent the majority of his time since seeking out a job. The only entertainment he could afford was the free Internet he mooched off the school's library with his old ID code. Edward missed money. "What is it? A movie?"

The waitress scoffed. "No, it's not a movie."

"Yet," the kid cut in. "There've been rumors."

"No way that's happenin'," the waitress said. "Some things are sacred and shouldn't be made into movies. Ever seen the _D&D_ movie?"

The kid adjusted his jaw. "Renee, we've had this discussion so many times, and I'm sorta in a business meeting. Can't this wait 'til later?"

Instead of upsetting the waitress, the reprimand seemed to amuse her. She turned to Edward with a dry smile and asked, "Can I get anything for you this mornin'?"

"Nothing for me. Thank you." Committing a possible felony had eviscerated Edward's appetite. "So, what were you saying about vampires?" he asked, unsure of himself as he watched the waitress walk away. It was obvious she looked out for the kid.

"I modeled _BITE_—that's the name of my ORP—after _World of Warcraft_. It's an online role-playing game, an entire cyber reality."

Computers were not exactly Edward's forte. He could barely understand social media, and now this kid was going on and on about quests and network setups and a few things Edward was ashamed to admit went straight over his head. He focused on the title page of the packet, on the words that made up the anagram _BITE_. Words, he could do; Edward had been a Russian Literature major and considered himself something of a word-slinger.

"_The Brethren of Immortal and __Tabanid_ _Everlasting_," Edward read. "Do you even know what 'tabanid' means?"

"Yes, of course I do. It means blood-sucking."

"Actually, it means blood-sucking insect. It's short for 'tabanidae,' which is a horse fly." Showing off for a ten-year-old was a new low for Edward.

"Nobody knows that."

"I knew that."

"What kind of person knows that?"

_An unemployed, ex-Russian Literature Major who carries a dictionary in his back pocket and has access to his mother's old crossword puzzle books, _Edward thought as he bypassed the question out loud.

"Your game is called is _The Brethren of Immortal and Blood-Sucking Flies Everlasting_."

"Well, what do you suggest?" the kid demanded too loudly. "I needed a word to fit the T, and that was the only thing that remotely worked."

"Okay, okay, okay." Edward held up his hands in surrender, so the waitress wouldn't have a reason to come back. "We can figure something out later. I'm, um, kind of good with words."

Placated, the kid said, "I've been pretty fucky with my—"

"You've been _what_?" Edward interrupted.

"Fucky. I like to sometimes combine my words together since it saves time."

"I'm not following."

"For instance, fucky is actually 'freaking lucky' smashed together."

"Kid, that does not mean what you think that means."

"Mr. Cullen, if we end up deciding to work together, I will technically be your boss. It's best if you refer to me as either Jasper or Mr. Whitlock." Apparently, the kid could tell that he'd stepped a toe over Edward's patience meter, because he quickly went back to talking about the business. "I've been very lucky with the actual coding of the website. Everything is perfect."

"So, what are you? Some kind of prodigy?"

The kid took a bite of his pancakes and ketchup, chewing slowly as he contemplated his answer. "I wouldn't say that. I just have a lot of spare time, and I spend it on the computer." That was obvious. "And Alice is always there to help me out."

"Alice is… your sister?"

"Alice isn't my sister," the kid said, closing the subject with a secretive chuckle. "The only problem I'm having is getting start-up financing for the servers and distribution."

"And why is that?"

"Well, look at me." He cast a self-conscious glance down at himself. "I'm…"

"Short?"

"Ten years old. I've tried meeting with some buyers. I've sent them demos of the game, and they've loved it. But when I meet them in person, they think it's a joke from their co-workers."

"Why don't you wait a few years and try again?"

"Because _now_ is the time of the vampire," he said passionately. "We need to capitalize on how popular they are at the moment!"

"You don't find it annoying?" Edward asked, curious. "I find vampires kind of lame."

A shadow passed over the kid's face.

"I meant overdone," Edward tried again.

The kid's face only got redder. "Vampires are not overdone. They are misunderstood."

"Right," Edward said, deciding to let it drop.

"You don't believe me!"

"I didn't say that."

"How many times do I have to reiterate that vampires are here to stay? They literally cannot die."

"Iterate," Edward mumbled.

"Huh?"

Edward cleared his throat. "Iterate," he said. "You were iterating, not reiterating that vampires are here to stay. I don't understand why people don't ever just iterate when they talk. It's like they forget it's a perfectly good verb."

The kid stared at Edward. Perhaps he had rambled somewhat, but it was still a valid point!

"That's where you come in," the kid continued as if Edward hadn't spoken, "I need someone to be the face of the company. Someone who can be a sharp salesman, is decent looking, and doesn't mind saying everything I tell him to."

"You expect me to say everything you tell me to?" Edward asked, entertained that this kid believed he had a snowball's chance of convincing Edward to do something so absurd.

"You didn't even know what _World of Warcraft_ was. If we expect to sell this thing, you need to sound at least a little intelligent."

"Hey!" Edward sat up. "I'll have you know that I am—" _was _"—a Russian Literature major. I also have bills to pay. I can't work on your little pet project."

"Did I not say in the Craigslist ad that your salary was to be negotiated?" the kid said, the frayed cuffs of his faded and worn-thin hoodie clenched in his small fists.

Edward wanted to groan or maybe laugh. "What can a kid really afford to pay me?"

"Well, nothing at first—"

"I thought as much."

"But _if_ you do everything I say, this idea is potentially worth millions."

Edward shuffled through the presentation packet one last time. He landed on an illustration of a man standing shirtless in the middle of a meadow… sparkling. "What is this?" he asked bleakly, holding up the picture.

"Vampires in _BITE_ are different from other vampires. They don't die in the sunlight. Their skin reflects light and makes them shimmer."

"Look, kid," Edward said, having hit his breaking point. "You have quite an imagination, and in a way, I'm sure that's a good thing. But this," he gestured to the pile of papers scattered over the booth table, "is absolutely crazy."

"I'm not crazy!" the kid shouted, looking suddenly wild. "Don't ever call me crazy again!"

"Not a problem." Edward stood. "Obviously, this isn't going to work, but good luck. And uh, stay in school, okay?"

Because he figured it was right, despite having barely enough money to feed himself, Edward found the waitress to pay for the kid's food. He watched from the front register as the kid, his posture utterly dejected, collected his presentation papers and straightened them back into the folder. When the kid's shoulders lifted only to hunch even lower over the table, Edward sighed too, an uncomfortable tension forming in the pit of his stomach.

"Hey, Miss?" he asked the waitress. "Do you know if that kid's parents are coming to pick him up soon?"

She shook her head as she swiped Edward's debit card. "Jasper's been comin' here every Saturday for nearly two years. Walks here from wherever he lives, I suppose. Won't let me drive him home or anythin'." She handed the debit card back but didn't let go when Edward clutched it. "You're the only other person I've ever seen him talk to."

Despite his best efforts, Edward couldn't stop thinking about the kid as he made his way out of the restaurant and onto the misty streets of Seattle. Certainly he had no reason to feel guilty. He was the injured party in this mess, for goodness' sake! The kid had tricked _him_ into coming, wasted _his_ time and _his_ money. So why, why did Edward feel like he'd done something wrong?

Edward approached his car, held the key up to the lock, and then let his hand fall. Maybe he should go back into the restaurant and give the kid a pep talk or some such nonsense. Maybe his guilt stemmed not from turning down the kid, but in how he had discouraged the idea (and the kid along with it). "No," Edward said to himself. "Let it go. There's nothing you can do. You'll only make it worse."

Shaking off the bout of gloom, Edward got into the driver's seat and pulled away from the restaurant. He would _not_ dwell on this. He would forget this nightmare and go find a real job. And perhaps that might have happened if Edward had made a left turn instead of a right. As he pulled around the bend in the road, he spotted the backpack… then the hoodie… then the glasses.

"Damn it, Edward," he growled, hazardously parking his car and jumping out. "Hey! Wait up!" he called. "Hey, kid! Jasper!" The kid turned around, startled.

"So, so…" Edward said breathlessly after jogging to catch up. "So, this idea's worth millions? How do you figure?"

Jasper looked like he couldn't believe what was happening. "You really want to know?"

"Yeah. Tell me. Tell me everything."

Jasper fumbled with his backpack to pull out his folder. "_World of Warcraft_ has over twelve million subscribers, and they sell those subscriptions for a pretty hefty profit each." He had statistics at the ready, but Edward didn't need to see them. "If we can get the proper funding, we could really pull this off. I'm willing to offer you half of whatever turnover we make."

"I don't know," Edward said, not wanting to get Jasper's hopes up that they'd make a dime on this.

"Sixty percent."

"Look, Jasper—"

"Seventy percent."

"Jasper, I—"

"You can have it all," he said, his desperation becoming palpable. "Just _please_ help me out?"

"What do your parents think about this?" Edward asked.

"They don't really care what I do with my time," he said, elated as if he knew Edward was on the brink of giving in. "You can even meet them, if you like."

Edward hesitated a moment longer to process the decision he knew he had already come to. His answer hinged on only one question. What the hell did he have to lose?

_**. . .**_

Two years, twenty-three changes to the T in _BITE_, and over one hundred interviews later.

Ten million subscriptions to _BITE_ sold.

Over three hundred million dollars in Edward's bank account.

Jasper C. Whitlock was one fucky genius.


	2. A Lesson in Banter

Definitely a Chapter, Even if It's Short:_ A Lesson in Banter_

_. . ._

"I see you started without me," said Edward, as he took his seat across from Jasper in the same IHOP booth they'd eaten at every Saturday for over two years. Being multimillionaires hadn't changed Jasper's love for cheap pancakes with ketchup.

"It's not like you ever eat anyway," Jasper said. "And we have a new waitress. She didn't know to wait 'til you got here."

Thoughts of Renee distracted Edward from watching Jasper eat his revolting concoction. The success of BITE, Inc., hinged on a huge secret, and Renee was the only person outside of the very small circle of trust to have ever guessed correctly. She would never reveal the true dynamic of Edward and Jasper's relationship—her adoration of the latter assured that—but Edward wasn't so sure about letting a new waitress get close.

"I don't like it."

"Of course you don't."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You don't like anything anymore," Jasper said, sectioning off another bite.

"That is not true."

"Yes, it is."

"No, it's not."

"Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes—"

"Okay, what are you doing?" Edward barked.

Complete with a wave of his red-stained fork, Jasper reasoned that "No" was a more powerful word than "Yes," so it took more yeses than noes to get one's point across.

"That's twelve-year-old logic for you," Edward said, to which Jasper stuck out his tongue. "Onto concerns of actual importance. Well, kind of. Emmett forwarded us this."

Inside the envelope was the classic blackmail note written with letters clipped from magazines. It read:

_Edward Cullen, _

_I know your secret. Instructions to follow. Consider yourself "Black" mailed. _

"Aw, man," Jasper groaned as he read. "Really? REALLY? But we're so careful!"

"Relax. I thought you'd find it amusing. It's like those movies you watch."

"It's nunny!"

What was nunny—not funny—was how quickly Edward could decipher Jasper's secret language these days.

It looked to Edward like it was time for some damage control. He went over his meeting with Emmett, lawyer to BITE, Inc., all the steps they had taken to catch the culprit, the unlikelihood this would come to a head, and then tried to distract Jasper with the cool forensic process they had used to gather evidence from the letter. This type of freakout was exactly why Edward had stopped letting Jasper come to meetings with Emmett; the kid might have been the genius that built and operated an entire online empire, but he was still only twelve years old.

"Did they find anything?" Jasper asked, perking up at the mention of fingerprints.

"Not that I know of."

"So you got _nada_." He pushed aside his half-eaten pancakes and dropped his head heavily onto the backs of his arms, the bright green baseball cap he refused to take off being pushed up in the process. The hat had cost Edward all of ten dollars at a Seattle Sounders game, but Jasper wore it like a sign of nobility.

"It's not a big thing, I promise you. Whoever sent this doesn't know shi— crap. It's a con."

Jasper responded with an exaggerated, trembling sigh.

"In other news," Edward said, bridging the gap of silence. "We have an interview with _The Spectator_ this afternoon. That's the newspaper Seattle University runs, and that is where I studied Russian Literature for the three years before I met you."

Jasper held up his spoon and made an odd face into the reflection. "Dude, you need to get over it."

"Get over what?"

"Seattle University? It's small-time," he said, twisting his neck to the right and bulging his eyes. "You were a Russian Literature major there, like, a million years ago. You need to move on. We're global now!"

"I _am_ over it," Edward insisted, though he wasn't. It nagged at him that he had never gone back to school. All he had to show from his time at college were some paid-off student loans and the fake diploma Emmett had forged to add credibility to his name. "Any press is good press, right?"

"It's just a college newspaper. And look, I get it. College is awesome." Jasper was now scrunching up his nose and showing all his teeth to the spoon. "It's the time for experimenting with drugs and heavy drinking and sexing up girls."

"Wha— Who— Where did you get that?" Edward sputtered. "Was it Alice? Tell me you haven't been asking her questions again."

"Yep. She told me," he said, tilting his head back, so he could see up his nose.

"Stop that!" Edward made a swipe for the spoon but knocked it from Jasper's hand instead. It bounced off the bench cushion to the floor.

"Be back in a jiffy!" Jasper said before disappearing under the table.

"Get out from under there. The spoon's filthy! We'll get you another one." Edward raised his hand to signal the nearest waitress. "Wait, wait. Stay under there," he hissed as the waitress caught his eye. She was a _very_ attractive woman—all mahogany tresses and porcelain skin, with big brown eyes and full lips. She grinned and gave Edward the signal for "I'll be with you in a moment."

"What's going on?" Jasper asked, poking Edward in the shin.

"Stay under there. I want a minute to suss out whether we can trust her." In actuality, Edward wanted to talk to her without Jasper interfering with all of his predictable kid-nonsense.

"Great idea, captain!"

"Shhh!" She was walking over now, an order-taking pad in one hand and a pen in the other.

"Hi! Welcome to IHOP," she said cheerfully. "I assume you're the big brother?"

Edward was entranced by her voice. It had a deep, raspy quality to it. "Sorry," he said, shaking his head slightly. "Excuse me?"

"The kid that was here. He said his big brother was on his way. Where'd he go, anyway?" the waitress asked, looking at Jasper's empty seat.

"Jasper? He, um…" Edward reached to come up with something witty, a joke of some kind. "He disappeared. Into thin air. Magic-style."

"Uh-huh. Sure."

"Poof." He made jazz fingers to enhance the sound.

She looked amused. _Ka-ching_! "So those are your pancakes with ketchup?"

"Absolutely." Edward grabbed the plate and dragged it toward him. "I just _love_ pancakes with ketchup."

"Wow! That's so interesting!" she said, her eyes lighting up with mischief. "I'd love to know what it tastes like. Maybe you could try some and tell me?"

Edward appreciated that she was playing along, but yeah, that wasn't happening no matter how hot she was. He looked around the restaurant conspiratorially, then motioned with his index finger for her to come closer. When she hunched down, her pad and pen rising up to her chest the closer she got, Edward pointed and mouthed that Jasper was under the table.

"Ahhh," she said, righting herself. "Well, until he reappears, is there anything I can get you?"

"Nothing for me, thank you. But a new spoon for the kid would be excellent. And maybe the check…" Edward was going to tack on her name as a personal touch, but when he glimpsed her nametag, he read, "Renee? Your name's Renee?"

"Hmm? Oh." She looked down at her nametag. "No, the tag machine's broken, so I stole Renee's for now."

"If you don't mind me asking, where'd she go? Taking the day off or something?"

As the waitress reached into the pocket of her apron for a stack of receipts and began sorting through them, she said, "Renee decided to retire from the waitressing business to become a trapeze artist and marry a minor league baseball player."

Under the table, Edward could feel Jasper untying his shoelaces. He kicked him away. "No, seriously," Edward said. "She was a good friend."

A mix of a scoff and a chuckle came from the back of the waitress' throat. "And I'm her daughter. Trust me, she's just crazy enough to pull something like that off."

"Is that so?" Edward asked, wondering how Renee could leave without at least saying goodbye to Jasper. "She's not coming back?"

"I guess we'll see. She's had more 'callings' than I can count, but her devotion usually lacks verisimilitude."

"Verisimilitude: to have the appearance or semblance of truth," Edward recited automatically. The waitress appeared momentarily surprised before they both laughed. "Sorry, that was awkward. I'm something of a wordsmith, being a Russian Literature major over at Seattle University. You don't get many 'verisimilitudes' in everyday English anymore."

"Oh, you go to SU, too? I'm an English major there."

"Well, kind of. You see, I'm—"

Bella's attention drifted to another customer beckoning her. "Hey, I gotta run." She grabbed a silverware set wrapped in a napkin from a neighboring table and handed it to Edward. "Maybe I'll see you around!"

Edward watched her walk away and nearly blushed when she stole a glance back at him.

Jasper popped out from underneath the table. "So, are you going to sex her up?"

"Shut it."

_**. . .**_

A small, rented office separate from BITE, Inc. Headquarters was where Edward invited journalists to conduct their interviews. Microphones rigged throughout the main room fed into a soundproof booth, where Jasper would listen and supply the answers to any questions Edward didn't know through a nearly invisible transponder Edward wore in his ear.

Out of state interviews were trickier, as Edward couldn't exactly smuggle Jasper from Washington without committing a felony, not that Jasper's parents would have noticed if their son disappeared for days at a time. Jasper and Edward used a similar earbud system for those interviews, this one designed for long-distance transmission both ways, and made sure to tailor every interview around Jasper's schedule. Thus was the life of a millionaire frontman.

For the Seattle University interview, Edward wore khakis and a collared blue shirt, wanting to look sharp. If the name of the journalist was any indication, this interview was going to be a breeze. Female interviewers always went easier on him. Jasper said it was because he was good-looking, then congratulated himself for "discovering" Edward. Emmett said it was because of Edward's millions. Edward said it was because they were all secret gamers. _BITE_ had a largely female fan base. The ladies _loved_ the vampires.

"Here." Jasper passed Edward the box that held the delicate earbud.

"Can you see it?" Edward asked after putting it in, bending down to Jasper's height so he could take a look.

"Nope. You're good."

A knock on the office door alerted the boys the interviewer was here.

"Outfit?" Edward asked, smoothing down his shirt.

"Professional yet inviting," Jasper replied.

"Hair?"

"Naturally air swept but not in a douchey way."

"Teeth?" Edward smiled widely.

"Pearly white."

"Nose?"

"Booger free."

"Spectacular. Go time." Edward shut Jasper inside his room and took the thirteen long strides to the front of the main room. "Testing. Testing."

"_Copied_," Jasper said, clear and crisp in Edward's ear. "_And action_!"

After running one more hand down his shirt to smooth any wrinkles, Edward opened the door with a charming grin, which turned genuine when he saw who was behind it. "Hey! You're the waitress from this morning! How unlikely is this? And what an excellent surprise."

"Yes. It is quite the coincidence…" Whatever else the waitress (_Bella_, Edward remembered from the email) said after that was drowned out by a shout in Edward's ear.

"_That's the waitress? We are so fucked__!_" Edward thanked God they had invested in decent soundproofing.

He wanted to both tell Jasper to shut up and reprimand him for using the F-word but could do neither with Bella standing inches away. He felt like such a dope, that goofy smile still in place, as he said, "Sorry, I didn't catch that last part."

She gave him a strange look but opened her lips to repeat, creating the odd sensation of watching a beautiful woman talk but only hearing a ranting twelve-year-old.

"_She's Renee's daughter, and she's the press! We're fucked, Edward! Completely fucked. Renee probably told her all about us, and so she posed as a waitress this morning to get close to us. All she wanted was the skinny! And she did it! She got the skinny_…"

Bella had finished talking and looked at Edward expectantly, like it was his turn to talk. Jasper was still shouting in his ear. It was all too much.

"Will you excuse me for a moment?" he said but didn't wait for Bella to voice her confusion; he wouldn't have been able to hear it anyways.

He had a very difficult decision to make: barge into the sound booth, likely exposing Jasper and risking millions upon millions of dollars, or… look like a crazy person. _Millions or crazy? _Edward was having difficulty deciding over Jasper's continued hysterics. Standing there after having excused himself wasn't helping either. _Crazy_, he decided, turning his back on Bella and walking to a corner of the room that was far enough from her that she wouldn't hear.

"Jasper. Jasper!" Edward whisper-shouted. "I need you to pull it together."

"_But we are fucked__!_"

"Stop using language like that, or I swear I will restrict you from Alice for a week!"

"_You can't do that__!_"

"Watch me." Edward looked over his shoulder at Bella, smiled reassuringly, and gave her the same "I'll be with you in a moment" signal she had given him that morning. He could only imagine what this must look like.

"_But you cuss!_"

"You listen up, young man! Be quiet and let me get through this. We don't know what she knows, and we'll never know if you don't shut up and let me talk to her."

"_But, but… This is how college students become serious reporters. They get one big story and BOOM! _People Magazine."

"Relax! Breathe. And only speak when you know I don't have an answer ready," Edward whispered with finality. "And for Christ's sake, stop making me look like a mental patient. That's only going to make her more suspicious."

"_Fine_," Jasper said.

Bella was massaging her head when Edward turned back around. Jasper was right. They _were_ fucked. Edward had no idea how he was going to recover from this catastrophic series of events. "I am truly sorry about that."

She looked up, her fingers remaining on her temple, and asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine." Edward motioned for her to take a seat in the plush leather chair they had set up for journalists, while he all but collapsed on the matching sofa. "You know how creative people act sometimes. A little bipolar, a little schizo. Characters always floating around up here." Edward's hand erratically shook over his brain. "Sometimes I just have to tell them all to shut up or I can't hear a damn thing!"

He laughed to lighten the mood, but Bella looked genuinely concerned and did not sit down. "You suffer from mental illness?"

"No, no," Edward hurried to say. "That—that's not what I meant at all. I'm not crazy. A little overwhelmed sometimes, sure. I promise you I'm totally sane. At least that's what the people at the loony bin tell me."

Her head twisted pensively. "So you're not mentally ill, but you like to make fun of those who are?"

"No! Of course not!" In the earbud, Jasper was banging his head against his desk. "Look, we got off on the wrong foot. Please, have a seat. Let me make you a cup of coffee or tea."

"No, thank you," she said but did finally sit down. "As I was saying earlier, it's quite the coincidence running into you twice in one day."

Something occurred to Edward that he hadn't picked up on earlier. "You didn't seem surprised when I opened the door."

She pulled out a folder from her purse. "I didn't realize who you were earlier. I mean, who would expect Edward Cullen to show up at IHOP? But I recognized your name from the signature on your receipt, then ran to the back where I happened to have this." She held up a printout of an article. "It's old news by now."

"_A likely story_," Jasper muttered.

"Shhh!"

"What was that?"

"I meant that shhhh-ure is a coincidence. Didn't Renee ever talk about me?"

"No." Edward wanted to push that topic further, but she'd already moved on. "You were right about one thing. We got this interview off on the wrong foot. I'm Bella Swan from _The Spectator_." She held out her hand.

"And I'm Edward Cullen, CEO of BITE, Inc.," he said, taking it. The two maintained eye contact while they shook, and Edward couldn't help thinking, yet again, what an attractive woman she was. Her hand was soft in his, and a feeling of rightness enveloped him until she pulled away. Finally, something was going good.

She cleared her throat and pulled out a tape recorder. "Um, I have a few personal questions for you, just to help fluff up the article. Then we'll move onto the typical questions about your product."

"Absolutely," he said, preparing for the repetitive "Are you single?" and "What do you do in your spare time?" questions he got every interview.

Bella finished setting up the recorder, pressed the red button, flipped to a bookmarked page in a notebook, and fired off her first question. "Have you always been an Edward? Or did you ever go by a nickname?"

This was a question Edward had never gotten before. He sat forward, eager to hear what else she'd come up with. "Nope, I've always been an Edward."

"Really?" she asked. "You never went by Ed or Eddie?"

"No, of course not." She didn't need to know about his secret identity at Jasper's soccer league.

"Why, 'of course'?"

"Well, you know Ed is spelt E-D," Edward said. "And E.D. stands for Erectile Dysfunction."

"_For the love of peanut butter, just stop talking! Stop talking now!" _Edward jumped, having momentarily forgotten Jasper was listening in.

He hadn't been trying to make Bella laugh or anything, and she didn't. She sat in stony silence, glaring at Edward. What had he done? He was being honest! (Well, not really.) He sat back, folded his arms, and stared right back at her.

Her silence was mightier than his.

"Maybe we should skip the personal questions," he sheepishly suggested.

Bella didn't drop his gaze. "I think that is a wise idea." She flipped to another page in her notebook.

"How do you respond to criticism that some of the features you've given the vampires of _BITE_ are absurd? That your vampires don't hold up to the vampires of other books, movies, or television shows?"

"_That is utterly preposterous__!_"

Edward was so proud of Jasper. He had obviously been playing with his thesaurus. "Which vampire characteristics are you specifically referring to?" he asked.

"For instance," she glanced down at her notepad. "Vampires in _BITE _can have babies."

"_No, they can't__!_"

"That's not exactly accurate."

"Oh? Please explain."

"A female vampire's body never changes and is therefore incapable of carrying a child. However, if they so wish, male vampires can mate with human women and have hybrid children."

"That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard," Bella muttered, scribbling notes down.

Edward tugged at his collar, more and more aware of how hot the room was becoming.

"_Explain about the venom,_" Jasper said. "_It all makes sense if you mention the venom_."

"A male vampire produces—"

"Why do your vampires sparkle in the sunlight?" she asked, cutting him off.

"_You wanted your vampires to be original. The _BITE_ vampires are more scientific than mythological. Their skin is made up of granite, so when it reacts with the sun—_"

Edward tried for a joke, hoping he and Bella would finally be on the same side of something. "It is somewhat flamboyant, isn't it?"

She quirked her eyebrows and wrote further in her notebook. "I actually thought it was one of the more creative aspects of the game."

He pawed his hair in frustration. Was he never going to win with this girl?

"In earlier prototypes of _BITE_, the acronym stood for 'The Brethren of Immortal and Tabanid Everlasting.' Do you know what 'tabanid' means?" Did _she_ know what tabanid meant? What kind of person knew that?

"Yes."

"And what is that?"

"Blood-sucking insect."

She appeared surprised that Edward wasn't fibbing about the extent of his vocabicon (vocab lexicon—or was it lexicab? He'd ask Jasper later). "Were there blood-sucking flies in the original edition of the game?"

"No."

"May I inquire as to why you essentially named your game 'The Brethren of Immortal and Blood-sucking Insects Everlasting'?"

Edward hesitated at this question, hoping that Jasper was coming up with something brilliant.

"_If you think I'm going to help you out now, I'm not_," Jasper grumbled. "_Sparkling in the sun is not flamboyant! It's creative. Even she said so._"

Slouching back in resignation, Edward said, "I needed something to fit the T in BITE. As you pointed out, it was a prototype. I wasn't too concerned."

"But certainly someone who was a Russian Literature major and is a self-proclaimed wordsmith could have come up with something better." She had a smirk in place.

Edward gritted his teeth at her backhanded comment and ran another aggravated hand through his hair, reminding himself that he couldn't exactly tell her that a ten-year-old had come up with that prototype. "The T in _BITE_ now stands for Trinity. It refers to the coven of the three most powerful vampires that live in Italy. It's a storyline I hadn't yet come up with."

"What do you say to the thousands of men worldwide who have identified themselves as WITEs, the Widowers of Immortal and Trinity Everlasting? Men whose wives have been so immersed in the game, they now feel alone in their marriages. Or to the sons and daughters of those women who have been neglected for a computer game?"

"Oh, is that your problem?" Edward snapped. "Renee always was a big gamer." Bella's jaw clenched, but she didn't respond. Edward was glad he had finally struck a nerve. "I would say to get a membership and play along with her. It's a family game."

"You mean with all the human and vampire mating going on? You encourage children to join in on the fun."

"_We have a child-safe version_…" Jasper piped up, apparently feeling helpful again.

"That's not what I meant," Edward argued. "We have a child-safe version available for—"

"Why don't you admit that you don't care if families are ripped apart by your game as long as you make a buck?"

"_Dude, this girl is hardcore! What is her problem?_"

"Yes, what is your problem?" Edward asked. "You have been completely hostile since the moment you walked into the room."

"My problem is that I cannot stand layers!"

"You can't stand layers?"

"Liars. I meant to say _liars_," she corrected. "And this whole thing has been one giant lie after another."

That shut Edward up.

"You aren't even going to try and deny it, are you?"

"Deny what?" he asked.

"That you lied to me this morning! You're not a Russian Literature major at Seattle University. How could you be? You're too busy running a multimillion-dollar corporation."

"Okay, that was _not_ my fault. I was about to explain to you that I _had been_ a Russian Literature student there when you got called away by another customer. I did not lie." Edward lied all the time. He was not about to let Bella diminish his very few truths.

She took a breath to think about it. Edward decided to push his luck before she could respond. "And if you were a proper journalist, you would have known that. It's all over the web, and I'm sure it's in at least one of those articles you have printed in that folder that I have a degree in Russian Literature." It wasn't a real degree but a degree nonetheless.

Her eyes flared. "I _am_ a proper journalist, and I happened to have read in one of those articles that you don't have any siblings. What of that, huh?"

"Yes. What of that?" Edward asked, confused at where she was going.

"The kid, Edward. Your supposed 'Little Brother.'"

"Who? Jasper?" Speaking of, Edward wondered what had happened to his more annoying half. Had he passed out somewhere around "This whole thing has been one giant lie after another"? Or maybe he was sobbing in a corner.

"Yeah. Him," Bella said. "What does he _really_ have to do with all this?"

She had asked the question in a mix of rage and adrenaline. Edward was sure she didn't know how significant that question actually was. But how to answer it in a way that would satisfy her, without giving anything away… Edward reached over and turned off her tape recorder. She was staggered by the action but didn't stop him.

"Jasper is my… friend."

"Your friend?" she repeated, indignation rampant in her voice.

"He's more than my friend."

"This is getting creepy." Bella picked up her recorder and folder and stuffed them in her bag.

"I look after him," Edward practically yelled as she stood to leave. "So did your mother, as a matter of fact. Bought him a stack of pancakes every damn Saturday for more than two years before I came along."

Bella turned around slowly. Her purse was dangling unsteadily around her wrist. "What are you talking about?"

"I…" Edward paused, frustrated. His feet took three steps toward her without permission. She didn't recoil or flee like he'd expected. "I can't talk about it." Jasper was in the other room, listening to every word. Edward wished he would speak now, to let Edward know what he was thinking.

"And what do Jasper's parents think of all this?"

"Jasper doesn't have parents," he whispered resentfully, praying that Jasper wouldn't be able to hear.

Bella clasped a hand over her mouth. "He's an orphan?" she whispered back.

"That's the worst part," Edward said. "He isn't."

Her gaze dropped to the floor. It felt like minutes before she spoke again. "Renee helped take care of him?"

"Before I came along, I think she was his only real friend. And look, I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds here. Renee may be flaky, but she's a good person."

"Yeah," Bella snorted. "Good to everyone else maybe."

"Please, regardless of everything, can you please, please not include anything about this in the article? He's a kid."

"Fine, but I have to go," she said, hiking her purse back up her shoulder and turning around.

"What about dinner?"

"Dinner?"

"Yeah, let me take you out to eat," he said. "Give me a chance to convince you that I'm not a total moron."

"Uh, thanks. But no. I really have to go," she said.

"This is about the erectile dysfunction joke, isn't it?" Edward asked, frowning.

She half-laughed. "No, I need to go write this. I have a deadline."

"I can pay off your editor."

"I really need to do it now," she said, making a beeline for the exit.

"Wait!" Edward called out, following closely behind her. If nothing else, he needed to make doubly sure she wouldn't write about Jasper. "Certainly you can stay a little longer." He made a grab for her hand. "You haven't even been here fifteen minutes. How much can you really know about me?"

She whipped around. "Talking to you is like foreplay."

Edward dropped her hand. Had she really just said what he thought she said? Was she using her article as an excuse to go home and…

"Not that I mind the analogy, but could you please explain?"

She sighed. "Interviewing someone is like foreplay. It's fun and fresh and gets you all warmed up for writing the article. But if you wait too long afterward, you kind of lose it. Do you want me to lose it?"

"Yes and no," he whispered hoarsely. "But mostly yes."

"Goodnight, Mr. Cullen," she said before walking out the door.

Jasper appeared by Edward's side. "I think you handled that really well," he said cheerfully.

Edward didn't respond.

"I personally cannot wait to read her rendition of that interview."

He was being facetious.

"She's definitely not a proper journalist."

That Edward could agree with.

"What's foreplay?"

And he was definitely not answering that question.

"You know that if you don't tell me now, Alice will later."

"Shut it."

_**. . .**_

**FWD: Seattle University Article**

From: Jasper Whitlock (aliceknowsall {at} bite. com)  
To: Edward Cullen (edwardcullen {at} bite. com)

Mon 6/08, 2:17 PM

* * *

Hey Erectile Dysfunction,

The article is pasted below. HOW DID YOU DO IT? I thought she hated us!

Jasper

**CEO of BITE, Inc. Not Your Average Cold-Blooded Capitalist**

By Bella Swan

_Only half a portrait is painted when one reads about Edward Cullen on the Internet. The official biography on his corporate website tells of a brilliant man who imagined an alternate universe into being, then brought it to your home computer through a series of shrewd business decisions. Media circles describe him as the ideal fusion of innovation, industrialism, and consumerism. The average Jane prattles on chat boards about the handsome face behind the computer game._

_Not until meeting Mr. Cullen in person can his portrait be completed. Yes, he's brilliant. Yes, he's handsome. He's witty, sometimes comical, often offensive, undoubtedly strange, and fundamentally, to the core, _good_. Mr. Cullen is the millionaire with a heart as gold as his bank account._

Edward's golden heart stopped, then pattered violently as he read on. Bella thought he was good. Good! Where had that come from? For the past week, he'd been preparing for the worst, the bitter fallout of a scorching assault on his character. But this… This made it seem like Bella _liked_ Edward. She thought he was good. And handsome. And well, strange, but he'd take that over outright crazy any day.

He scanned the rest of the article and was relieved that she hadn't mentioned Jasper. There wasn't even a hidden allusion to him, like a mention of Edward working with underprivileged kids. The article said that he was good but left it there without explaining why. It then launched into details about the game and how it was created, which Edward could only assume Bella had collected from her research.

This was excellent. Perfect, really! Well, not the article. The article was bad. Bella would never make it as a journalist. But the outcome for _BITE_ was unexpectedly terrific. Edward doubted anyone would even read it now that it wasn't a character assassination. "Good" didn't sell papers.

Edward typed out a quick email to Jasper: _Have no idea what happened. Feel like a trip to IHOP this weekend?_

After pressing the "Send" button, Edward settled back into his office chair for a re-read of the article. Something about the last paragraph, especially, sent a tingle up his spine.

_While speaking extensively with Mr. Cullen about the inner workings of his creative process, I found myself inclined to enjoy his hysterically unfunny jokes and maniacally persuasive ramblings. More to the point, I found myself wishing I could spend more time with them. After all, the world is an extraordinary place when you're slightly strange._


	3. A Lesson in Discourse

A Full-Fledged Chapter Despite Its Endless Dialogue: _A Lesson in Discourse_

_**. . .**_

If Edward was the face and body of BITE, Inc. and Jasper was the cogs and gears, Emmett McCarty was the nuts and bolts. He was legally and fiscally knowledgeable, excellent at manipulating loopholes, and could smell a rotten deal a mile away—the perfect third to Edward and Jasper's team. Even before taking the bar exam, Emmett had realized the potential in Jasper's concept and proved himself an invaluable asset. They couldn't pay him more than a promise and he didn't have any experience, but together, they made _BITE_ a reality.

What Edward appreciated most about Emmett, aside from his legalese, was the way he told it how it was. He never sugarcoated a grievance or downplayed a lawsuit, not even for Jasper. And that was exactly the reason Jasper wasn't invited to Edward and Emmett's bi-weekly BITE, Inc. meetings.

"Next on the list is…" Emmett scrolled down his Excel sheet. "Ah, yes, the blackmail. Not going to lie, this appears to be more serious than I'd originally estimated." He opened his desk drawer and passed Edward a small stack of papers, crinkled from the glue that held down the ransom-like magazine letters.

Edward shuffled through the notes. "'I've watched you drive your Volvo,'" he read. Then another, "'I know where you live.' What the hell does that have to do with anything?" They were all signed the same. _Consider yourself "Black" mailed_.

"Beats me. But it does beg the question, if he knows where you live, why does he keep sending those damn things here?"

"No kidding." Edward counted eight letters in total. "Who is this asshole? Have you heard from him aside from this? Has he made any demands?"

"Not yet. I talked to a blackmail expert the other day. Some amateurs will try to make you panic before delivering their terms."

"How is him knowing," Edward flipped a few pages back, "that I 'prefer to drink bottled water' likely to make me panic? Doesn't everyone?"

Emmett shrugged. "He's a moron? I've put a guy on it. Maybe you should increase security until we figure it out. Sounds like you're being stalked."

"Yeah, maybe," Edward said, not giving it much thought as he put the letters in his briefcase. "Oh, and don't tell Jasper. He actually will panic."

"Right-o. And that brings us to the final item on our list for today." Turning from the computer, Emmett folded his hands in front of him. "We have to talk about that thing."

"What thing?"

"The thing you hate talking about."

"Oh, that thing." Edward ran both hands down his face. "I really don't want to think about that thing right now," he said, pinching his chin between his forefingers.

"We're at the point now where I really don't think that's an option. Actually, I think we hit that point six months ago."

"I'm confused. I thought Jasper had forgotten about it. He hardly brings it up anymore."

"To you," Emmett said. "He's trying to give you space and time to decide. That was my suggestion, by the way." He took a moment to pat himself on the back. Literally, he patted himself on the back. "But he's sent me seventeen emails in the past month alone asking if you've mentioned it. He hasn't forgotten."

Frustrated and unprepared, Edward took to pacing, not an uncommon display in the penthouse office.

"Geez, no need to tug those perfectly quaffed tresses from your head," Emmett said. "I'm not saying you have to adopt the kid. All I'm saying is you should give him an answer."

Edward halted behind his chair, clutching the top of it. "Don't you think I would if I had an answer to give?"

About a year ago, Jasper had dropped his first hint. It was a completely mundane day, and he and Edward were doing some completely mundane task for _BITE_. Edward couldn't remember what it was, but he _vividly_ remembered Jasper chuckling over nothing and saying, "Maybe you should adopt me. Then we could do this all the time."

Edward had frozen. Jasper had, too, as he held his breath for Edward's reaction. It had taken a few moments of frantic soul-searching for Edward to decide on an appropriate response. "Yeah. Maybe," he had said, laughing it off as a joke.

Never before had two words given someone such hope. Jasper became relentless, escalating from subtle hinting to outright begging. It made Edward feel awful. It not only highlighted what a desperately unhappy home life Jasper was stuck in but proved what Edward had been suspecting for a while; Jasper had become dependent on him. Edward greatly cared for Jasper and, in deeply introspective moments, admitted Jasper was the best friend he'd ever had. Was that healthy? Edward didn't know.

He didn't know where he stood on the whole adoption thing. He didn't know if it was even possible. The only thing Edward did know was that in all that time, he'd never been able to flat out refuse Jasper's request. "What would you do if you were in my position?" he asked Emmett.

"Easy. Buy a yacht and go party with P. Diddy." Edward glared. "Right, not the time for jokes." Emmett tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the edge of his desk. "Honestly, I'd pursue custody. Seems cruel not to when he wants it so badly."

Edward took up his pacing again. "It's not that simple. Jasper isn't some kid in the foster system. He has parents."

"Negligent parents."

"And the second they catch even a whiff that I'm looking into petitioning for legal guardianship, they're going to transform into the most loving and devoted parents in Washington State history until it blows over. And let's face it. What kind of judge is going to grant _me_ custody?"

"I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but we have options. You've practically been his guardian for the past two years, and we can prove that in court if we need—"

"There's no guarantee that will work," Edward said. "Courts want kids to stay with their parents. And if not his parents, Jasper will be thrown in with some relative he's never met before. Go through the courts, and I'll never see him again."

"Or," Emmett said as if uninterrupted, "we can find a way to convince his parents to independently sign over their rights. That way we don't have to go through a custody hearing."

Edward was shaking his head. "This is all beside the point. Look at me." His jeans and t-shirt weren't exactly impressive attire. "I'm twenty-four fucking years old. How can I take responsibility for a boy who's already half my age?"

Leaning back and crossing his arms, Emmett said, "Don't ask stupid questions."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, I don't know," Emmett sniffed. "You're financially stable, you're emotionally available, and you're already doing the damn job anyway."

"Being a big-brother-type is a lot different than full-on guardianship. This isn't like adopting a puppy. We're talking about an almost teenager."

Emmett held up his hands in frustration. "All I'm saying is you're getting skittish about taking on a responsibility you already have. Next to effectively running one of the largest interactive websites in the world, this should be a piece of cake. And to be candid, anything is going to be better than the environment he's in now."

Edward didn't respond at first. So many thoughts—excuses, Emmett would call them—were running through his head. What if he didn't win? What if the courts discovered Jasper was the innovator behind _BITE_? What if they thought Edward was exploiting Jasper? And worst of all, what if he couldn't handle the responsibility? "I'm just trying to give the decision the weight it deserves," he finally said.

"That's fair," Emmett said. "And you should. But Jasper's a super genius. And you're… you. I'm confident the two of you could figure it out. S'all I'm saying."

"Fine," Edward said, resigned. "My answer is still not yes, but it's not a no, either."

"So we're right back where we started. These things tend to get trickier the older the kid gets."

"Don't look at me like that. This is exactly why I hate talking about it. We never get anywhere."

"Yeah, I s'pose this is my fault," Emmett said without a hint of irony. "S'pose this is what I get for talking to you before you're ready with an answer one way or another. After a year of the kid dropping hints like snowflakes, I thought you'd have some clue."

"Well, I don't," Edward snapped, then softened. "But I don't know. Maybe you can start putting some paperwork or charts or reports or something together for me to look at. You know, in case I decide to proceed."

A small, smug grin tugged at Emmett's lips, a sign he thought this was some sort of victory.

Edward looked at his watch and blew out a breath. "I have to go pick Jasper up. We're going to IHOP before his soccer game this afternoon."

Emmett's smile only widened.

"Oh, shut up. This isn't about Jasper. It's about a girl."

"Ah. Trying to find a new mother for young Jas–"

Edward was already out the door.

_**. . .**_

"Anything else I can get you?" Bella asked, pulling back a coffee pot.

"Nope, but thank you," Edward said. He felt Bella depart from beside him without another word. This was not going as he'd imagined. This was awkward. And he didn't drink coffee.

Jasper dropped his hands to his lap after a solid three minutes of twiddling his thumbs in front of his face. "I'm bored. Are you going to make a move or what?"

"What are you talking about?" Edward laughed uneasily. "It's not like I'm here to hit on Bella."

"You're not?"

"Of course not."

"Then what are we doing here?"

Edward tugged at his collar. "We come here every Saturday."

"Nuh-uh. We didn't last Saturday."

"That's because we were," Edward barely avoided using the word scared, "_worried_ about the article. We didn't want to do anything that might piss her off more."

Jasper picked up a handful of French fries from his plate, a rare deviation from his usual order, and dipped them in a pool of maple syrup. "It sounds like we were being pussies," he accused.

Edward's hand fell to the table in agitation. "Don't talk like that. It's unbecoming. And I thought you wanted to come here today."

"That's when I thought it would be interesting," Jasper said, still chewing. "I thought something was going to happen."

Edward nearly jumped out of the booth when he heard Bella's voice directly over his shoulder. "To be fair, so did I."

"Uh, hey again, Bella," Edward said. "What's up?"

She plopped down in the booth, forcing a bewildered Jasper to scoot closer to the window. "I'm on a break. Thought I'd take the opportunity to clear the elephant in the room, especially if you're going to keep showing up here."

Jasper strained his neck to look around. "I don't see an elephant."

"It's a figure of speech," Edward said, a hint of exasperation in his tone. "Public school systems, I tell you."

Bella laughed. It was as sweet and delightful as Edward remembered from their first meeting. "What do you need from me to get past this whole journalism mess?" she said. "Oh, don't pretend like you don't know what I'm talking about. You won't win any points with me by lying. We're all thinking about it. Might as well suss it out. So what'll it be? A written apology? I'll be the first person to admit I suck at those, but I'll do it. How 'bout an explanation? A vile of my blood? My firstborn? Whatever you want."

"None of the above," Edward said. "The interview may not have gone well, but it didn't show in the column. Let's call it even."

"Whoa," Jasper said. "Don't let her off so easy! She called _BITE_ absurd and ridiculous, which it clearly is not."

Bella turned on Edward. "You told him that?"

"Not exactly," he said through his teeth, a warning to Jasper about keeping up appearances. "Jasper is very intuitive. He filled in the blanks when I told him you didn't like _BITE_."

"I am intuitive," Jasper said. "I skipped seventh grade."

"Did you really?"

"I know what you're thinking," Edward said. "Elephant in the room and all. But it's true. He's smarter than he looks. I didn't even have to pay off the teachers."

"That's very impressive."

Jasper beamed. "Thanks, but we're still not letting you off easy."

"Right. I was very rude to your friend. What would you have me do?"

"Eat a… bowl of… spiders."

_Yep. That's the mastermind behind _BITE, Edward thought. Bella crinkled her nose.

"He's kidding," Edward said. "We're not going to ask you to do that. Right?" He directed the last question at Jasper.

With an offended tug at his baseball cap, he said, "Well, you come up with something better then!"

"I think Bella should have to go out to dinner with me," Edward said without fully thinking it through.

Jasper gaped. "She insults _BITE_, and her punishment is dinner? That isn't fair!"

"I thought you wanted to see me ask her out. That's why you came." Edward winked at Bella.

"You said you weren't going to!" Edward wished now he hadn't have winked.

"I changed my mind." He winked again to smooth over any insult Bella might have suffered from that.

"Well, so did I."

"It's too late. I already asked her."

Bella held up her hand. "Don't wink again, for the love of God."

"Yeah, that was creepy," Edward said. "Why is it I've never been able to pull that off?"

"Emmett says you don't got game," Jasper said.

"I don't _have_ game," Edward corrected.

"That's not how Emmett says it."

"Okay, before we get sidetracked here," Bella used her hands to form the time-out signal. "I think what Jasper's trying to say is that it makes more sense for _me_ to take _you_ out to dinner. After all, I was the one who was unprofessional."

Edward leaned back contentedly. "Sure. I could agree to that under a few conditions. Are you free tonight?"

"I am, but what are your conditions?" Bella asked at the same time Jasper said, "We can't do it tonight. My soccer game!"

"Bella, my conditions are that I get to pick you up, choose the restaurant, and pay. Jasper," Edward spoke louder as Bella opened her mouth to argue, "there'll be plenty of time after your soccer game. And speaking of which, we need to get going. It's our turn to pick up a snack for the team."

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute." An expression so somber overtook Bella's face, Edward worried he'd actually offended her with his date conditions. "Edward, are you like a soccer mom?"

"I am _not_ a soccer mom," Edward answered at once. "Soccer moms are scary."

"Yeah! They almost beat Edward up last time we brought snacks," Jasper said.

"They did not, thank you very much."

"What? Why?" Bella asked.

"It was stupid," Edward said. "Jasper, devil that he is, convinced me to get candy and soda for the team's snack. He told me that all the parents do that to make their kids look cool."

"You actually bought that?" Bella laughed.

"It's not like I know what's 'in' these days," Edward said. "Needless to say, I was properly shamed." His satirically incensed gaze shifted to Jasper. "And that's why today is nothing but Gatorade and nutritionally balanced meal bars for you."

"We'll see about that."

Bella reached into her apron pocket for their checkout receipt and absentmindedly said, "Yeah, good luck, Edward. Believing excuses like that, I'm not so sure you're cut out for parenthood."

"No, he is!" An urgent hand gripped Bella's forearm. She dropped her stack of receipts, startled. "Take it back. He is. Take it back," Jasper whispered, gazing earnestly into Bella's eyes as if trying to hypnotize her into retracting her statement.

The urge to hide under the table overcame Edward. Bella opened her mouth and looked to him for answers, but a tight smile was all the response he gave her.

"Um, I am sorry," she said. "Sometimes my mouth runs away with me. I'm sure you'll make a wonderful father."

Jasper's grasp on her arm slackened. "See? Bella thinks so."

Plainly uncomfortable, Bella went back to finding the correct receipt.

"Now is not the time," Edward said in a low voice, missing the joviality of a minute before.

"But— "

"Not now."

"Here you go." The click of a pen drew Edward's attention back to Bella. "Make sure to get this copy of the receipt back when you check out. I wrote my address and phone on it. Are we, uh, still on for tonight?" she asked, casting an apprehensive sideways glance at Jasper.

"Absolutely. Seven work?"

"Perfect." A shy smile crossed Bella's lips as she scooted out of the booth. She gave one last small wave, before fading into the hustle of the restaurant.

_**. . .**_

The address Bella had given Edward led to an inconspicuous, mint green townhouse within almost equal walking distance of IHOP and Seattle University. Two small, well-kept gardens on either side of a cobbled-stone path charmed Edward, as did a sign above the doorbell that read, "NO SOLICITING. We're too broke to buy anything." He wished he had lived some place like this when he was in college, but the welcoming nature was probably more the tenant that lived here than the property itself.

"Bella, your millionaire's here!" a woman's piercing voice called, followed by the sound of muffled arguing and some kind of physical altercation. Edward froze. He hadn't even rung the doorbell, yet. And was that what he was to Bella? Her millionaire? He was debating whether to hightail it out of there when a pretty girl with curly brown hair and ample cleavage opened the door.

"Wow," she gasped with a giggle. "You're even better looking in person."

Standing directly behind the first, another girl swatted her on the shoulder. "Jess! Behave."

"What? It's true," this "Jess" said unabashedly.

Though the tips of his ears had turned bright pink, Edward chuckled and offered his hand. "I'm Edward Cullen."

"And I'm available," said Jess.

"Oh, my God," the other girl groaned. "Could you maybe try a little harder to make the poor man uncomfortable?"

"Uh, it's okay," Edward said, taking a small step backwards and shuffling his feet.

"It's really not. I'm Angela. This gold-digging bi-otch is Jessica."

"I'm an opportunist. What can I say?" Jessica twisted a strand of her hair around her finger. "So, what does it take to catch a millionaire these days?"

"Subtle, Jess," Bella's voice rang from somewhere in the house. "You could at least invite him in before asking wildly inappropriate questions."

"I think I'm safer out here," Edward called back.

Appearing at the top of a staircase, hair swept back in a messy-chic do and wearing a black cocktail dress, a beautiful, though shoeless, Bella said, "I'll be one moment," before disappearing again.

Jessica clapped to refocus the conversation on her. "Hey, I need advice. I can't afford the Millionaire Matchmaker."

It was hard for Edward not to appreciate Jessica's bluntness, him having grown fond of the same quality in Emmett. She was shallow, a proud gold-digging bi-otch, but in a surprisingly charismatic way.

"I don't know if I'm the right person to help you," Edward said. "Bella's the first woman I've asked out since becoming a… you know."

"That's fascinating. What did she do right?"

Smiling fondly and focused on the soliciting sign, Edward said, "It was more like everything she did wrong."

He looked up to find Angela and Jessica exchanging a syrupy glance. "That is so sweet," they said in unison.

"Uh…" Edward scratched the back of his neck.

"Finished!" Bella reappeared fully appareled behind Angela, opened a nearby closet, and fished out a blue jacket. "Let's get out of here."

"It was nice meeting you both," Edward said with a nod.

"That's sweet, but Bella likes lying as much as the _Real Housewives of Wherever_ like acting their age," Angela said.

"Preach," Jessica said. "Remember that one guy she nearly de-balled after finding out he didn't actually play _BITE_? Just used it for pick-up lines?"

"Thanks," Bella said tersely. "Goodnight."

"Wait one second," Edward said, not budging when Bella tugged on his arm. "_BITE_-inspired pick-up lines?"

Jessica looked like she'd won the lottery. "Can you see me sparkle? 'Cause you're all sunshine."

"Nice," Edward laughed.

"That's a PG one. The best are R-rated."

"Don't," Bella warned.

But Jessica was already rolling. "Wanna get a room?" she asked in a deep voice. "'Cause I'm hard as granite."

Edward's interest dropped like a pit into his stomach. "I feel dirty."

"And now we're going," Bella said. Edward didn't resist her tug this time.

"Hey, baby," Jessica yelled at their backs. "I'm vamp. You're human. Wanna make a hybrid?"

"Ignore her," Bella said. "She knows them all, because we get a never-ending tirade of _BITE_ pick-up lines when guys find out where we're from."

"And where is that?" Edward asked, guiding Bella to the passenger side of his car.

"You don't know?" There was a tinge of disappointment in her question.

"Should I?"

Instead of climbing in the car when he opened the door for her, Bella fidgeted with her purse and looked back at the house. Her roommates had already disappeared inside. "The three of us, well, we're from Forks."

Edward's grasp slipped from the door handle. "Forks, _Washington_?"

"The one and only."

That was a fluke almost too big to overlook. For whatever reason, Jasper had chosen Forks as the location for the original _BITE_ quest, only later expanding the journey out to international territories. In cyber-reality, Forks, Washington was a town overrun by vampires, the place where every "newborn" user began. In regular-reality, it was a tiny, tiny speck of a town somewhat off the grid and out of the way.

"Well, there's a coincidence," Edward muttered.

"Is it?"

"Isn't it?"

"Maybe," Bella said, timidity oozing from her speech and body language. "But I kind of came up with a theory after I met you."

"By all means, I'd love to hear."

"I thought that maybe since you knew my mother when you were developing the game…"

"Yes! That makes sense!" Edward exclaimed. "Jasper must have—" He caught himself in the nick of time. "I mean, so much has happened since those initial stages, I completely forgot. Jasper really wanted me to use Forks after Renee mentioned it to us."

"This is crazy!" Bella gave a keyed up little leap, the cutest thing Edward had ever seen.

To think that this girl had played a role in the invention of _BITE_, even in a roundabout way, made him feel… connected. Her excitement was contagious, and Edward felt his grin stretch the length of his face, a somewhat permanent fixture.

"What are we doing?" he said, laughing as he gestured toward the open car door. "We have reservations."

"Sorry! Got carried away. Warning you now, it happens a lot with me."

"I think I can handle it." Edward hoped he wasn't lying. It had been over two years since he'd gone out with anyone, and he was worried he wouldn't remember how it was done.

_Think first date. Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't reveal too much. Treat her nicely. Be a gentleman._

"I didn't have a chance to tell you earlier," he said once he was situated in the driver's seat and revving up the engine. "But you look stunning. Thanks for joining me this evening."

"Thank _you_," said Bella, "for still wanting to go after I stuck my foot in my mouth."

"Which time?"

"You know, this morning with Jasper." Edward did _not_ know and quirked a teasing eyebrow. "The comment about parenthood…?"

"Right." Edward lightly pounded his forehead with his palm. "That wasn't your fault. Jasper's just…" He tried to find a way to explain Jasper's sensitivity, then realized the first date probably wasn't the best time to bring up the prospect of legal custody. "Why don't we leave the weighty stuff until later? If we ever get to that place, I'll explain it."

"I completely understand," Bella said. "No pressure."

Something occurred to Edward, something that made him anxious in more ways than one. "Bella?"

"Hmm?"

"I hate to ask you, but I want to make sure we're on the same page."

"Ask me what?" she asked after a few silent moments.

"You're not going out with me to get the scoop for your newspaper, right?" It was a responsible but incredibly rude question, and there was the small part of Edward that didn't want to know, for the sake of his pride.

"Oh, God no." Relief swelled in Edward at Bella's mortification. "Trust me. I'm not that kind of journalist. Well, I'm not a journalist at all, really. Especially now. I turned my press badge in after I finished your article."

"You did?"

"Yeah, so no worries. I'm no longer a reporter of any kind."

There was a tiny flicker of what Edward hesitantly labeled hope, but for what, he couldn't recognize. "Why aren't you pursuing journalism further?"

Bella mulled over her answer. "That's probably an if-we-ever-get-to-that-place kind of story."

"Fair enough."

As a traffic light turned red and Edward pulled to the mandatory stop, Bella recognized her IHOP up ahead and asked with forced politeness if that was where they were headed.

"Hell no," Edward said. "The place we're going is further up Madison. IHOP is Jasper's thing, not mine."

"About that. I was wondering… Is Jasper still mad at me for the aforementioned foot-in-mouth incident? He seemed pretty upset."

Edward hesitated. "Technically no."

"But?" Bella pushed.

"Okay, I'm only telling you this because you have a thing about honesty." The light turned green, and Edward used the distraction to stall his answer. "He's not mad about the IHOP incident, which, I repeat, was not your fault. He's just sensitive. At the moment, however, he's livid with me about something that happened this afternoon. So, possibly, there's some lingering anger there on your end."

"Damnit, Edward." Bella smacked the dashboard in mock outrage. "What'd you do?"

"You assume it was my fault?"

"Naturally."

"You'd be wrong. Don't commit assumicide. That's exactly what happened to Jasper."

"Assumicide?" Bella fell into a fit of giggles.

"Courtesy of my tenth grade teacher," Edward said, admiring the pink glow of Bella's cheeks. "To answer your question, Jasper assumed that he was invited to our little tête-à-tête. He showed up to my room dressed to the nines in his best suit. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him he wasn't coming." Edward tried to pass it off as playful, but the tiniest bit of remorse tugged at his heartstrings. Oh, the guilt of Jasper standing there all pathetic-looking with his slicked-back hair and impeccably tailored suit.

"Oh, no," Bella said. "He was more than welcome if you wanted him to come."

"That's the thing. How can I focus on getting to know you when you're focused on getting to know him?"

The matter was settled, and as Edward pulled up to their destination, buoyancy edged away his doubt and guilt. By and large, Edward avoided restaurants that crammed their menus with food he couldn't recognize, but Jasper had pointed out in his fit of rage that taking Bella anywhere less than five-star would give her the wrong impression about what Edward felt she was worth. If the slight gape of her mouth as she poured over the menu was any indication, Edward guessed Bella was feeling like ten million bucks right now.

"_Bonsoir_, my name is Laurent, and I will be your server this evening," said a dark-skinned waiter with a heavy French accent. His dreadlocked hair was a stark contrast to the sophisticated establishment, even if it was pulled back in a tidy ponytail. "May I offer you a cocktail, aperitif, or beverage?"

Bella flipped the menu to its wine list. Edward could practically feel her tabulating the cost in her head. The cheapest bottle was $45, a small fortune to a college student. "I'll have a Coke, please."

The waiter's smile slipped for a millisecond. That there was exactly why Edward shunned upscale restaurants. He could imagine what was going through the waiter's mind. This was one of _those_ tables, the kind where Joe Shmoe, with his limited budget, was trying to make his honey feel like a queen for the night. It was all backwards. Laurent would pine for the next big spender while merely humoring those who scrapped and saved for months to savor this experience.

"For me, as well," Edward said.

Laurent returned with a pitcher of soda and filled their wine goblets. As he did, Edward asked him to walk them through the menu and in English, please.

"Let me start with _le plat du jour_, or tonight's special." And Laurent was off, talking about _Poulet à la Something or Another_ and _Brochette de Unintelligible_. Edward couldn't keep up with the rapidly recited English translations. By the time he'd reached the _Salades_, Bella's eyes were glazing over.

"Laurent, I'm going to cut you off there," Edward said. "Can I have a moment to deliberate with my cohort?"

"_Oui_. Please take your time."

Holding up his menu to shield his face from Laurent, and indicating that Bella should do the same, Edward whispered, "Have you ever chewed a piece of gum that got stuck to the roof of your mouth?"

"Why? Do you have gum stuck in your mouth?" Bella whispered back, vaguely disgusted.

"No, I'm not chewing gum. I was just curious if that's ever happened to you."

"Not that I can recall."

"I'm thrilled to hear that! But if, God forbid, it does ever happen, do _not_ chew another piece of gum thinking it will un-stick the first. It will only get stuck up there, too."

"Wow. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to tell me that," she said with as much sincerity as Laurent's smile. "I will absolutely keep that in mind."

"Excellent! And one more thing before we have to talk to Dreadlocks again. Do you think duct tape could be the key to our survival during the zombie apocalypse?"

She tapped a contemplative finger to her chin. "Now that's a tough one."

"Our waiter is waiting, Bella."

"I think that… if you wanted to keep chewing it, probably the best way to get the gum off the roof of your mouth is with one of those newfangled dental floss picks. But a spork would do in the case of an emergency."

Neither could keep a straight face as they burst into hushed snickers. The sound of a throat clearing on the other side of their menus only contributed to their amusement.

"Yes, we are prepared," Edward said, laying his menu down. "Bella, what will your poison be this evening?"

She was still getting herself under control from behind her menu. "Shit, I don't know."

"Wonderful. Neither do I. That leaves us with only one option, I believe."

"I can come back in a few minutes," Laurent halfheartedly offered.

"No need. We will order everything."

When a punch line didn't come, Laurent said, "_Monsieur_, when you say everything, you mean—?"

"Everything," Edward said. "As in, if it's on that menu, and even if it's not, we want to try it."

"Ah."

When Laurent didn't move to fulfill the order, Edward asked, "Is there a problem?"

"_Monsieur_, our courses are quite filling. I worry that ordering so much food might be overwhelming for two people."

"We'll manage. She has the appetite of a small herd of cattle." A swift kick under the table told Edward that she was not amused.

Turning his back to Bella and bending down to Edward's ear, Laurent said with as much courtesy as he could muster, "_Monsieur_, there will be the matter of the bill."

Hating to do it but seeing no other choice, Edward dug his wallet out from his back pocket and flashed his elite Amex-issued Black Card. "It won't be a problem," Edward said quietly. "And while we're at it, I'd like to anonymously pay for the meal of that table." He gestured to a "Joe Shmoe" couple he'd pinpointed earlier in the night. "Treat them right. Your tip depends on it."

That certainly put a fire in Laurent's step. When he righted himself, it was with an overly cheery smile. "_Que vous le souhaitez_. As you wish!" he said, collecting their menus.

"Are you sure this is okay?" Bella asked once he'd left. "That's a lot of food. And the cost…"

"It's fine." Edward waved her off. "I hardly ever splurge like this."

"That explains the car."

"What's wrong with the Volvo?"

"Nothing at all." She swirled her Coke as if it were wine. "For a soccer mom."

A gasp and a heart clutch accompanied Edward's, "You wound me, Miss Swan."

"Good. I had every intention to. Hey! Speaking of soccer, how'd Jasper's team do today?"

"They won ten to eight. Jasper scored three goals," Edward said proudly.

"Nice. So Jasper has soccer prowess?"

"I'd say yes. He's getting better every game. This is the first time he's played an organized sport, but he has natural talent and a never-quit attitude."

The first course of the meal was making its way over to the table. Edward had expected a sizable tray of selections, but Laurent only carried two small plates with silver dome lids. He placed one in front of Bella, then Edward. "Presenting the Guinea Fowl Terrine Amuse-Bouche," he said, lifting the domes to reveal a sprig atop a coin-sized sphere of raw meat. Drips of vinaigrette sprinkled the concoction.

"That's it?" Edward asked. A cough into her napkin stifled Bella's laugh.

"The amuse-bouche is only a taste of things to come, _Monsieur_." His tone had become considerably more civil in light of the color of Edward's credit card.

"Okay, then." Edward reached for a fork, then pulled his hand back. Counting three forks, two spoons, and two knives at his place setting, he was at a loss.

To his surprise, Bella said, "Start from the outside and work your way in."

"Don't we know a lot about fancy silverware."

"Please. That's what Kathy Bates tells Leonardo DiCaprio in _Titanic_."

"That's the kind of thing you should never tell a guy." He made a grab for the bigger middle fork, rebelling against _Titanic_ and the establishment as a whole.

"Mmm. This is delicious," Bella said.

Edward considered the flavors. It had an intense, refreshing taste. "It is good," he agreed. "I just wish there was more to it."

"You're a peculiar fellow, Edward Cullen." Bella set her fork upside down on her plate. "I figured someone with your… _financial assets_ would eat out at places like this all the time."

"Maybe if I'd grown up in this life," Edward shrugged. "Believe it or not, I was your average broke college student not so long ago."

"You sound like you miss being broke."

"It's not the being broke I miss. It's the being average. Fame and fortune have their downsides. Don't get me wrong. It has its perks, too. The mansion for one. And you know, I get to meet special people like Laurent," he teased. "But the pressure. Bella, the pressure is insane."

"But if you didn't want all this, why'd you seek it out?"

"I met Jasper," Edward answered honestly. "I had to get motivated. And quick. I wish I could explain. Maybe if we ever get to that place, I'll be able to."

"I wonder what 'that place' looks like," Bella mused. "I'm beginning to see it as an actual location."

"Didn't you know? That Place is a beach."

"Ah, yes. I see it now. There's a sunset. And accoutrements."

Fascinated by the wistful glimmer in Bella's eye, Edward said, "Do elaborate."

"There's a picnic basket filled with chocolate bars and graham crackers. The marshmallows sit closer to us, where we're roasting them by the heat of a bonfire. I'm too impatient and keep letting my marshmallows catch fire, claiming it adds to the flavor. You, on the other hand, you don't mind waiting. You like to take your time. You like the slow burn."

_Damn_. No, "damn" didn't do this girl justice.

_Fuck_. This girl was something.

"I see snowflakes," Edward said. "The every-snowflake-is-unique kind. Dr. Suess-style. But they're not cold. When they touch you, it's like… they give you a warm feeling, like a tingle." Edward's fingers twitched toward Bella. A surge of daring gave him the courage to bridge the gap and lightly caress the back of her arm. "It feels like that. And that's when we realize, it's not snow. It's ashes fluttering away from the fire."

Bella pulled her arm back and took a deep breath. "Edward, you're giving me chills."

"You know what this is?" With his finger, Edward circled the space between them. "We're vibing."

"Oh, God," Bella laughed.

"We are. We are wholly and completely vibing. Our auras just made a baby."

"Shut up," she said with a playful punch to his shoulder. "If anyone else had heard that drivel, they'd call it craze-vibing. We'd be chucked in the loony bin, for sure."

"Hold on there." Edward crossed his arms. "Are you making fun of the mentally ill? 'Cause I have it on good authority that loony bin jokes are off limits."

A smile peeked through Bella's pursed lips. She acquiesced with a nod. "I had that coming. And in case it isn't obvious, I am really sorry for how I acted during that interview. I had you figured all wrong."

"Don't worry. You're doing an exceptional job making up for it. But while we're on the subject, I am curious as to why you were so set on hating me."

"Alas, we have reached that portion of the evening," Bella said, mostly to herself. She adjusted, readjusted, and then re-readjusted herself in her chair. "I have a confession," she said, staring steadfastly at a big spot of nothing on the tablecloth.

"Well, aren't you a bundle of surprises."

"Before I tell you, promise to keep an open mind and at least let me explain."

Nothing good ever started with those words. "I promise," Edward said, aching with curiosity.

"Okay, I'm a… Sorry, I can't look at you when I say this." She twisted in her chair to face a wine rack. "I'm a—"

"Your second course, _Monsieur_, _Mademoiselle_!" Laurent's accent chimed. Edward let out an irritated grunt as Bella seemed to deflate. "We have Smoked Salmon Mousse, Nori Tuile, Braised Oxtail, Spaghetti Squash…" Completely oblivious to their glares, he rattled off the names of three or four additional dishes. "Pace yourselves," he concluded. "You have about twenty plates to come."

"Yeah, better timing next course," Bella muttered bitterly. A humiliated crimson permeated her cheeks as Laurent stiffened and then gradually turned to face her. "Oh, my God. I am so sorry. I was totally kidding. I didn't mean for you to hear that. It was a joke, I swear. I am so, so sorry."

"Why you gotta be so mean to poor Laurent?" Edward asked, not even trying to mask his delight with Laurent still standing there. "And you're a waitress! That has to break some union rule."

"You're not helping," Bella said through her teeth.

Edward gleefully tipped his Coke glass in her honor. "Not trying to."

"_Merci_, _Mademoiselle_." Laurent bowed his head. "But no apology required. Enjoy your second course."

Bella waited until he was well out of earshot before throwing her napkin at Edward. "You're a jerk."

"This is fine dining, Bella. There's no napkin-throwing in here," Edward said, throwing the napkin back at her. "I'm ready to take your confession now."

Bella eyed the cart of delicious smelling food sitting next to them. "Wouldn't you rather eat?"

"I'm not eating anything until you fess up."

"Well, this will hardly have the same dramatic impact as before my appalling display of waiter-solidarity, but here goes," Bella said. "I'm a BITE-hard."

Edward gasped spectacularly and let out a genuinely disbelieving, "No!" The term BITE-hard was coined to describe only the most rabid and devoted _BITE_ players.

"It is true." Bella fiddled with one of her forks, not meeting Edward's gaze. "Perhaps it would be more accurate to say reformed BITE-hard. I stopped playing a few months ago."

"Why?" Edward asked, trying to work through this most outstanding turn of events.

"Because it was taking over my life! I spent fifteen hours a day on the game. My grades were slipping. I'd skip class to go hunting with my coven."

"Tell the truth, Bella." Edward's voice was comically provocative. "Were you a vegetarian vampire? Or were you… naughty?"

Unable to take his self-righteous smugness, Bella buried her head in her arms and mumbled something unintelligible.

"Oh, come on. You have nothing to be ashamed of. We have over ten million subscribers. You're not the first woman to be seduced by the scent of a vampire. And if it helps, I find it extremely attractive."

Bella's head lifted enough for her chin to rest on her arms. "You're not totally creeped out?"

"Why would I be creeped out?"

Perhaps wisely, she chose to keep her reasons to herself. "Wow. I'm starved. That Oxtail thing looks delicious."

"One thing doesn't make sense to me," Edward said after a minute. "If you liked the game, then why all the hate at the interview?"

It took an inordinate amount of time for Bella to swallow her Salmon Mousse and a bit longer before she said, "It took over my life to the point where I wasn't a productive member of society anymore. It was turning me into my mom, but that's a whole other mess of psychological issues. I couldn't control my obsession with _BITE_, and I blamed you for creating such an addictive product."

"That's actually a huge compliment in the gaming industry," Edward pointed out. "Sometimes people need an escape from reality. _BITE_ provides that."

"And two weeks ago, I would have called that entrepreneurial bullshit," Bella said, poking at her plate. "I had already decided I was going to give you a hard time when the editor of _The Spectator _handed me your interview. Then I met you at IHOP and came to the conclusion that you were a big, fat liar. And that infuriated me to no end. I can't tell you how much I hate liars. Again with the mommy issues."

"About that… Is it all lies, or can you bear the occasional white lie?" Edward asked, realizing he was probably doomed either way.

"White lies," Bella scoffed. "No such thing. Just because a lie is made with good intentions, doesn't make it okay. In fact, I'd argue white liars are worse. One white lie turns into another and then another. Someone who justifies a white lie generally doesn't realize when they cross the line into outright deceit. And I'm totally rambling and scaring you off right now, aren't I?"

Only then did Edward realize his face had slipped into a petrified mask. He quickly rearranged his features. "Not at all," he lied. "But now I have a confession." The slight turn of an ear toward their conversation from a patron just past Bella's left shoulder caught Edward's attention.

"By all means," Edward barely heard Bella say.

The patron was alone at a table, facing away from the couple. His stature was much smaller than the average guest, but Edward wouldn't have noticed, what with his being so absorbed in Bella and that slicked back hair replacing the baseball cap Edward was so used to.

_I don't believe this_.

"Excuse me," Edward said as he stood. It was the tiny twist that had betrayed Jasper, the one that indicated he was eavesdropping and Edward's next sentence was of particular interest.

Bella grabbed Edward's arm before he walked by her. "You're going to leave me hanging?"

"Right. That was rude." Edward shook off his stupor. "I need a minute to take care of something."

"Okay," Bella said. "I'll be here."

"And I'll be back. One minute."

Three perilous taps on Jasper's table alerted the boy he was caught and better follow Edward to the restaurant's terrace, where a brisk draft greeted them. Dim light from the strands of globe lights adorning the roof and the last fading rays of sunset lent a dramatic quality to Jasper's resilient posture, which only angered Edward further.

"How long?" was what he could manage without unleashing the full weight of his temper.

"Around snowflakes."

"Jesus," Edward barked. "Have you ever heard of boundaries? Do you know how unhealthy this is? Jasper, this is stalking. _Stalking_."

"It is not! I eat here all the time," Jasper said. "And besides, this is business."

Edward's right palm aggressively massaged the skin between his eyebrows, even though he knew the friction would leave a nasty red blotch for when he returned to Bella. "And what business would that be?"

"Making sure you don't give away trade secrets. And thank God I came," Jasper said. "You were about to blow the whole thing."

"I was not," Edward said, indignant.

"You were too! I heard you. You were _vibing_."

"You have absolutely no idea what you're talking about right now."

"No. You're the one without a clue. I'm the genius here. I'm the one who figured out that Bella's undercover."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's obvious! Bella's gone undercover to get the skinny."

"She has not. Here's a newsflash: she quit the paper."

"Of course she quit. She's in deep! An undercover reporter isn't going to admit that she's undercover."

At wit's end, Edward flung his arms over his head. "This is preposterous."

"Alice told me that's how small-time reporters get big stories. She's trying to gain your trust. And you're playing into her hands, like a fool."

"You know what? Screw Alice," Edward said, hitting where he knew it would hurt. "I'm sick of the nonsense she fills your head with."

Jasper's nose flared. "How dare you! Take that back."

"Never," Edward snarled.

They glowered at each other for some infinite amount of time, battling through their stare-off until Edward said, "Forget this. I'm on a date. I'm texting Emmett to take you home, and I'll deal with this later. Wait here for him, or I swear I'll restrict you from seeing Alice for a month."

"This fucks," Jasper grumbled, bringing Edward to a halt. "And that stands for flipping sucks, so it's not cussing."

There was no use arguing, and Edward had a date to get back to. So after sending a discreet text to Emmett, Edward collapsed back into his chair and said, "I am so sorry for my bad manners. It won't happen again."

"Everything okay?" Bella asked.

"It will be." It was kind of cheating to distract Bella by taking hold of her hand, but he figured it was the easiest way to recapture the mood. When she didn't pull away, a thrill went up Edward's spine. "Where were we?"

"You were about to make a confession."

"Yes," he said, trying to collect his thoughts. "It was about the lying. As you know, I'm in a very competitive market, and… and… and I can't believe this is happening." Edward's head slumped disgracefully over their hands before he sat upright and prepared for combat. Laurent was marching straight towards them, followed by a smug Jasper.

"_Excusez-moi_," Laurent said. "No matter the colour of your Am-Ex card, you cannot toss my clientèle on the street, especially Monsieur Jasper, who frequents this restaurant often and is very generous."

"How generous?" Edward blandly asked. From Laurent's tone, he'd wager Jasper was paying the waiter's way through college.

"That is none of your business," Laurent said, either extremely obtuse or ignorant to Edward's role in Jasper's life. Or in all likelihood, both. "Leave him in peace, or I shall insist you vacate the premises."

"Look, Laurent—"

"For a Russian Literature major, you're sadly uncultured," Jasper chirped from behind his defender. "It's not Luh-rawn_t_. It's Luh-rawn. The 't' is silent."

Edward was half-amused. "Jasper," he said calmly. "Why don't you tell Luh-rawn-_t_ who controls your credit card? You know, the person who has an AmEx representative on speed dial in case he should wish to cancel it at any moment. Say, for instance, _now_."

Laurent moved from in between Edward and the now cowering Jasper. For a moment, the waiter visibly warred with himself as he tried to figure out his next move. He'd backed the wrong horse, and as that dawned on him bit by bit, his whole body seemed to sag.

"This ain't frigging worth it. I quit. I actually quit." Gone was the fluty French accent, the theatrics, any semblance of hope. It was replaced by a deep, undeniably American cadence. "After this, they're firing my ass anyway."

"_Vous n'êtes pas français_?" Jasper asked with perfect French diction, at least as far as Edward could tell. When had he learned to speak French?

Laurent untied the apron from his waist, folded it gingerly over his arm, and turned to take his walk of shame. "Little dude, my name isn't even Laurent. It's Larry."

Edward felt a pressure on his hand and looked up at Bella. She was wearing a beguiled grin, and her eyes positively twinkled with humor. An enchanted Edward couldn't look away. She was radiant. A silent request passed between them, and Edward nodded his approval.

"Hey, Larry," Bella called without diverting her gaze. "You're career isn't over if you don't want it to be. We can use some help polishing off all that food. A third chair for Jasper and our next course would be appreciated."

Then she winked, and all Edward could think was, _Fuck._ _That girl's got game_.

_**. . .**_

After an evening devouring exquisite cuisine and chatting about this, that, and nothing, Edward walked Bella up the pathway to her front door as Jasper drifted in that place between dreams and consciousness in the backseat of the Volvo. He'd ended up an entertaining addition to the party, especially with all his suspicious prodding. Edward had learned things about Bella he would have never thought to ask.

"I had a really great time," Bella said.

"So did I." Edward set down two very full paper bags brimming with leftovers next to the door. He considered kissing her, but it didn't feel right. A second later, he realized why. "I never confessed!"

"What? Oh, that's right. You were going to tell me something before Jasper showed."

"And my conscience won't let me take this any further until I get it off my chest."

"So you do have a conscience. I was beginning to wonder."

"Put on your serious hat for a moment, dear Bella."

She reached in her purse, pulled out an invisible cap, and perfectly mimed yanking it over her hair. "Done. Please continue."

Why did she have to be so perfect? Edward gathered his courage, knowing he'd walk away from this either unburdened and excited or intolerably depressed. "You don't like liars, so there's one thing I'm not going to lie about and that's lying." He swallowed, preparing to drop the other shoe. "Bella, I lie all the time. Lying is basically in my job description.

"There are times I even lie to journalists, and I don't think that's wrong. I'm in the public eye, but I deserve some privacy." He paused briefly to monitor Bella's reaction. So far, he couldn't read her. "There are things I won't be able to tell you, not because I don't want to but because I can't. What I can do is promise to let you get to know me, the real me, the me that's buried under all this _BITE_ crap. And then maybe one day, if we get to That Place, I promise to give you all my secrets."

That was the end of Edward's speech, but Bella didn't reply. She did, however, turn her back to him.

"So there it is. Take it or leave it," he tacked on.

"That's… a lot," she said into the darkness beyond the porch. "Does Jasper know your secrets?"

"He knows all the secrets I can't tell you," Edward said. "But there are secrets that I'll be able to tell you that I can't tell him. You know, the age-not-appropriate sort."

When she turned back around, her expression reflected curiosity, not the antipathy Edward had expected. "So you do think about what's age-appropriate for Jasper?"

"Often," Edward said, despite how bizarre the question was for this particular conversation.

Bella glided her fingers along the porch railing. "I like you, Edward. I do. And I can give you your privacy until we get to That Place." She'd said what he'd wanted to hear, but it was wrong. Her voice was dubious, not determined.

"So, we're good then? We're moving forward with this?" Edward asked.

"I want to," Bella said with that same doubtful undertone, "but while we have our serious hats on, there's one thing that's been bothering me."

And there was the "but." Edward's heart picked up a beat.

"It's hard to know where to begin," Bella said.

"Normally the beginning's a great place," Edward suggested.

"I suppose it happened when you went to the bathroom and left me alone with Jasper."

"Ugh. I knew I should have forced him to come with me!" Bella cocked her eyebrow. "You know what I mean. I knew he was going to do something to mess this up."

"Well, it's not really his fault," Bella said. "He was telling me about his friend, Alice. He was being honest."

As usual, an aggravated hand found its way to Edward's hair. _Fucking Alice_.

"Look, Edward, I really don't mean to backseat parent." Of course, that meant she was going to. "But I feel like it's up to you, as the adult in this relationship, to protect Jasper. He's a kid, and some of the stuff he told me Alice shows him how to do is… Well, it's pretty scandalous."

"You don't know or understand what I'm up against here," Edward said defensively. What right did she have lecturing him on this subject anyway?

"I get that. And you're probably wondering who I am to talk about what's best for Jasper. And that's totally fair. But our society is perpetuating a certain 'the younger, the better' culture right now that's putting so much pressure on these kids."

Edward inhaled deeply and looked down to a doormat that read, "WELCOME! Just don't expect much." Damn it. Bella was adorable even when she was annoying.

"And this Alice girl, Jasper told me that she's a few years older than him," Bella continued. "It can't be healthy, for either of them, to engage in sexual activity so young. Down the line it could really come back to haunt them. It can—"

"Hold the phone," Edward said. "You do know that Alice is Jasper's _computer_, right? As in, not a real girl? As in, a desktop computer made up of metal and wires and other computery things?"

Bella's mouth was still agape from being cut off mid-sentence, but a quirked head and bulbous eyes answered the question just fine.

"Forgot to mention that little factoid, did he?" Edward had no doubt Jasper knew exactly what he'd forgotten. Little bastard. "Yeah, he's not _engaging_ in sex. He's Googling it like every other twelve-year-old pervert on the planet."

"Huh." Bella gave her temple a bemused scratch. "So what you're saying is, Alice needs a power cord to get turned on?"

"In a nutshell."

"Well, that changes things."


	4. A Lesson in Analogy

Trifling but a Chapter None-the-Less:_ A Lesson in Analogy_

_**. . .**_

The slam of a coil-bound demographics booklet hitting the kitchen's counter startled Edward from his scrubbing. "You swore when you started dating that… that… _female_," Jasper spat in lieu of the many ruder alternatives Edward had nixed under penalty of grounding, "it wouldn't affect your work."

"And it doesn't when you don't bombard me with this crap five minutes before a date." Edward snatched the demographics from under Jasper's hand and shoved them into a cutlery drawer. "Stop cluttering up the kitchen. I haven't spent this whole week cleaning for you to spoil it now."

Jasper watched in distaste as Edward, for the fifth time that morning, opened the fridge and buried himself in the condiments. "You are the CEO of an international, multimillion dollar company. You can't just—"

"As a matter of fact, I can just. It's in my contract. Saturday is my personal day, if I choose. And I do choose. I'm choosing right now. No CEO-ing on Saturday from here on out."

"But our users are getting _booored_. We need a killer new idea. And by killer, I mean violent."

"Then why are you pestering me? Ideas are your department, not mine."

"I'm not a machine, you know. We need to brainstorm and come up with something apocalepic."

"Maybe it's time we hire you a writing partner," Edward suggested as he opened a jar of expired horseradish and sniffed, his expression of disgust matching Jasper's.

"Excuse me?" the boy said.

Tossing the horseradish, Edward said, "No offense, but maybe it's time we bring in some help. I'm not saying you're out of ideas, but we might want to avoid another human-vamp hybrid scenario."

"_Exsssss-cuuuse_ me?"

"You know it. I know it. Let's face it. Hybrids aren't as popular as we thought they'd be. I'm not saying it was a horrible idea. I'm just saying it was a kind of lame idea."

Jasper looked close to snarling. "Oh? Is that what that… that _maiden_ says?"

"Come on. You know it's not only her. What do you think your faltering demographics are trying to tell you?"

Jasper stared intensely down into the marble, deep in thought. "This is worse than I'd ever imagined."

"It's not that bad. We'll recover."

"No, we won't." Jasper looked up. "Don't you see? This isn't about being an undercover reporter at all. She's trying to change the entire makeup of the game."

At more than three weeks into his almost-relationship, Edward was mostly impervious to the countless accusations Jasper launched towards Bella, his attention more consumed by color-coordinating the condiments. "You're going to go away once she gets here, right?"

"Don't you see what she's doing to us? She's shrewd. She's conniving. She's worse than the Volturi!"

Edward's head popped out of the fridge. "Hey, the Volturi! That's your answer!"

"If only," Jasper grumbled. "They generally only kill humans for food. And I doubt I could get her to Italy."

"Idle death threats will not be tolerated under this roof. But think about it. If you want something that is apolept-t-t… apocal-la — ugh, screw it — apocalyptically epic, you need the Volturi. They can bring the pain."

"No, absolutely not. The Volturi are scarier in the abstract. They get less scary if you reveal what they look like."

"So, the whole length of the game, the Volturi, who are the most powerful coven of vamps in existence, are going to sit back and do nothing because they're somehow scarier that way?"

"Anyone who opposes them will get torn to pieces. Users aren't going to— Why are you smiling?"

"I came up with a funny pun but didn't use it. I'm a disgrace to my mother," Edward said, equally amused with his pun and reminiscent of the witticisms that had filled his childhood.

"What was it? It's not funny if you keep it to yourself."

"Okay. You said, 'They'll get torn to pieces.' Then I thought, 'Piece out.' Only piece was spelled p-i-e-c-e. Get it?"

Jasper wasn't quite as awed by Edward as Edward was. "That's it? Horrible. You are a disgrace to your mother, just not in the way you think." He smirked. "See what I did there? I made a pun."

"No, you didn't. That wasn't a pun; all you did was reverse the meaning."

"It was too a pun. A pun is a play on words. That's the definition my English teacher gave us, and that's exactly what I did."

"Yes, you played with the words, but it wasn't a pun." What was the American education system coming to? "Specifically a pun is a—"

"Shup," Jasper abruptly demanded. "Please, shup. Don't say another word. I don't want to hear it."

"But—"

"No, Edward. You suck the fun out of everything."

The ring of the doorbell drowned out Edward's, "I do not." He shut the fridge door and repeated his denial as he started towards the door.

"Yes, you do!"

"How do—"

"Shhh! I said I didn't want to hear it." Jasper covered his ears and made a beeline for the movie room. He waited until Edward opened the door for Bella before calling out his parting farewell. "Bye, fun-sucker!"

"Right back at you, _pun_-sucker!" Edward yelled to the slamming of the movie room door. He turned back to Bella and casually leaned against the doorway. "Pretty impressive, huh?"

"Yeah, this house is huge," she said, peeking around his shoulder to the living room.

"No, I meant my pun. Er, never mind. Please come in."

Bella stepped over the threshold and slipped a folded mound of paper from her hoodie pocket. "Is fun-sucker my new nickname or yours?"

"Mine."

"In that case, fifty well-thought-out and insightful questions for Fun-Sucker as written by Bella Swan."

"You did your homework," Edward said, grinning at the accomplished raise of Bella's chin. Inspired by Jasper's off-the-wall Q&A from their first date, Bella and Edward were taking turns drafting lists of questions, streamlining the dating process. "Let me give you the tour, and then we can tackle your insightful questions."

Never had Edward been so grateful for Jasper's propensity to waste money as during Bella's tour. Though Jasper had wanted life _Richie Rich_-style (a butler, a roller coaster in the backyard, and a personal McDonald's), he had settled for the most expensive property on the Seattle market, an eclectic French-style mansion that stood on two acres of land.

"It's really incredible," she said, throwing herself down for the third time onto one of the down cushions lining Edward's family room couch. "It's like you can feel the money beneath the fabric."

She reminded him of Jasper the first time he'd walked into the house, her child-like wonder preserved by her unwavering honesty and an authenticity most other adults had forsaken for a sense of comfortable dignity. She took no pains to hide her awe and curiosity.

Running her fingers along the armrest, Bella said, "Here's a brilliant idea for an amusement park. You fill it with expensive couches, and then people pay to take naps on them. It'd totally be worth it. I've never sat on anything so relaxing."

"That is… an awful idea for an amusement park, but I can appreciate your entrepreneurial spirit," Edward said, toeing the corner of a $7,000 Persian rug. "Ready to continue the tour? Or perhaps you'd like some alone time with the couch."

Bella stopped caressing the fabric and pulled her fingers into a fist. "What exactly do you think would transpire between me and the couch during our alone time, Edward?"

"A nap?"

"I just met this couch," she said, hopping up. "What kind of girl do you think I am?"

"Hey, you have nothing but my respect. I like to get to know couches before sleeping on them, too." With his lips still pursed on the "too," Edward's face slid into a mortified kind of grimace. "Onto the rest of the tour?"

Bella grabbed one of the throw pillows off the couch and said, "Okay, but I'm taking this with me."

"Uh… why?"

"A little bit of pillow in the get-to-know-you phase isn't all bad," she said, hugging it as she brushed past him with wicked, electric eyes. "And it's _really_ soft!"

It took Edward a full five seconds to un-stupefy his feet into following Bella down the hallway. Eventually, he regained function of his voice as well and, in his best tour-guide impression, said, "To the right, you will see yet another set of French windows that boasts a spectacular view of the bay and conservation area. But an even better view can be found up this staircase, which will take us to Jasper's wing of the house."

"Jasper has a _wing_?"

Edward paused midway up the first step. "Not if you think that's weird."

"A little. I can't be the only one who thinks that. I mean, I know you have a special relationship with Jasper, but you're not related. Don't other people think it's strange he has his own room at your house?"

"We keep a low public profile. Only a handful of people even know about Jasper." Edward wished he could explain that this was actually Jasper's mansion; it would ease the creep factor significantly. "You're one of the select few who get to see this part of the house."

"What about Jasper's parents? Have they seen it?"

"Nope," Edward said, continuing up the stairs.

"Do they even know about it?"

"Nope."

"Do they know about you?"

"Yep. Well… ish."

"Yeppish?"

"Please," Edward stiffly turned around on the top step and added a hint of tour guide exasperation for good measure. "No flash photography during this portion of the tour. And don't touch anything, as Jasper won't hesitate to kill me."

Bella raised her hand.

"The woman in the front row, you have a question?"

"If Jasper were to kill you, how do you think he'd do it?"

"Decapitation, without a doubt."

Climbing so she was on the same step as Edward, the throw pillow flush against his body, Bella simpered, "Then I'll proceed with caution. Wouldn't want to deprive the world of that handsome face." Such flattery was a recent development in their budding relationship, and an elated knot twisted in Edward's gut as a result.

Jasper's part of the house, littered with futons and beanbag chairs, was much less formal than the rest. Bella didn't seem to know where to look first: the two walls entirely devoted to Jasper's collection of LEGO memorabilia, the entertainment center housing hundreds of DVDs, or the nook with six flat screen computer monitors bracketed to the wall.

"Let's begin over here." Edward directed her to the nook, where a screensaver displayed a flurry of colors weaving kinetically between the monitors. "Alice," he said grandly, addressing an ancient desktop computer tower. "I'd like you to meet Bella."

Bella, transfixed by the light streams, said, "She's… certainly something."

"Hmm? What was that?" Edward asked.

"I said she's—"

"No, not you. Alice is speaking." Lowering his ear to the processor as if to listen closer, Edward let out a series of ahs and uh-huhs in agreement with Alice's whispers. "Okay, then," he straightened up.

"And…?" Bella asked, taking the bait.

"She wanted me to tell you to stop looking at her monitors, you pervert. Her eyes are over here." He pointed to the tower.

Bella laughed but apologized.

"Don't say it to me. Apologize to Alice. I'm kidding," Edward said before she actually did. "But now you know what I have to put up with all the time."

"I understand." A crinkle formed between her eyebrows as the sympathetic grin she'd sported slipped. "Actually, I don't. Why does Jasper talk about her like she's a real person?"

As Edward studied their entwined fingers, he began to realize that That Place wasn't one moment in time when he'd suddenly feel comfortable divulging all his and Jasper's secrets to Bella, but rather a progression of letting her in piece by piece.

"Alice was his only friend for a long time," he said. "At six years old, Jasper dug her out of his parent's storage closet, dusted her off, and fixed her up. He has a knack for technology. He says she saved him from years of tedium."

"Then why does Alice stay here instead of at his parents' house?"

Edward shrugged. "He spends most of his spare time over here nowadays, and he likes to be close to her. He has a new computer for when he's at his parents'."

"Why Alice?" Bella asked, pulling away to peruse some of Jasper's other belongings. "Why'd he name her that?"

"I think it came from _Alice in Wonderland_. He used to go out to fields looking for rabbit holes he could fall into."

Coming to a stop in front of Jasper's impressive assortment of movies, Bella said, "I can understand that. I used to sit in my closet for hours dreaming it would turn into a portal to Narnia. Oh, my God!" Bella picked up a movie sitting away from the others on top of the DVD player. "This was my favorite movie as a kid!"

_Matilda_ was a children's novel-turned-movie about an extremely gifted little girl, whose parents were wretchedly mean and inattentive all her life. In the end, Miss Honey, a teacher who had grown to love Matilda, adopted her, and the two lived happily ever after. Edward knew why Jasper had worn through his copy of the video. But Bella?

"Was Renee that bad?" he asked.

Taking care to put the DVD case back in the exact position she'd found it, Bella said, "It was bad enough that I asked to move in with my father when I was fourteen. And that's saying something, because I hated Forks back then. Mom hated it even more, but she did come to Seattle to be closer to me. I'm surprised she stayed as long as she did."

Sensing the unease in Bella's demeanor, and knowing he didn't have the right to push any further, Edward asked instead why she hated Forks.

"A better question: How did you manage to make Forks appealing to millions of people across the globe?"

"Duh. He filled it with vampires," answered a voice right behind them.

The pillow was recklessly flung from Bella's hand as she spun around, screaming. When she saw it was Jasper, she put a hand over her heart and took a few breaths to calm her heavy breathing.

"Are you okay?" Edward asked, startled more by Bella than Jasper's sudden appearance.

"I'm so sorry," Bella said, shaking off the fright. "I didn't hear Jasper come in. Sometimes when I'm in the zone and I'm interrupted, I get a little violent."

"You're the one intruding."

"The best view of Mount Rainier is from this room, and I'm giving Bella the full tour," Edward said. "Deal with it."

"I love your collection of LEGOs," Bella kindly added. "It's awesome."

"LEGOs is not a word. The plural of LEGO is LEGO; it's an invariant word, like moose or fish."

Beyond tired of Jasper's unrelentingly shtick, Edward said, "Nobody likes a know-it-all."

"He gets that from you," Bella said. "You know that, right?"

Edward adopted a mask of innocence. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Liar! And you know how I feel about liars."

"You're not even right all the time," Jasper said, for once siding with Bella. "Like when you said Bella was pixilated and said that meant she was cheerful. That's not what it means."

"Whoa," Bella said, incensed enough to punctuate it with a jab to Edward's shoulder, much to Jasper's delight. "Why would you tell Jasper I was pixelated? Were you stalking me online? You promised not to do that until at least the sixth date."

"I didn't say you were pix-_e_-lated. I said you were pix-_i_-lated, meaning vibrant and happy." Edward nudged the back of her hand. "And I happen to like that about you. A lot, actually."

Bella grinned shyly through biting her lip. "Aw, that's swell."

"It doesn't mean that," Jasper said. "Alice told me that pixilated means Bella's crazy. And I think she is," he added, eyeing the discarded pillow.

Edward's jaw made an audible clicking sound as it tightened, then slackened, then tightened again, and back and forth. Why did he put up with Jasper again? _The millions of dollars_, he responded. Okay, he knew that wasn't true.

"Um, regardless," Bella said. "I admire the work you've put into building your LEGOs, uh, LEGO toys. You're obviously a very committed and hard-working young man."

Jasper couldn't even let her have that. "They're not toys. LEGO is a way of life."

"Enough," Edward barked. "Get ready to go. We're leaving for your soccer game in fifteen."

"Is _she_ still going?"

"You're pushing it," Edward warned, grabbing Bella's hand and turning her towards a hallway opposite the staircase they had entered through. She just missed the face Jasper sent in their direction, but Edward didn't. He stuck his tongue out in retaliation.

It was probably a good thing Edward didn't see the gesture Jasper made once they had left the room.

"I am so, so sorry for Jasper's behavior."

"Please," Bella said with a wave that indicated it was no big deal. "I'd much rather he openly express how he feels towards me than pretend he actually likes me."

"Really? 'Cause he's acting like a total jerk."

"Trust me. This way is better. And, uh, you know I don't like to backseat parent." That slogan was about the only untrue thing Bella ever said, though Edward was sure she didn't realize it. "But if I were to offer some advice, I might say to try not to pit me and Jasper against each other."

"I'm not following."

"Like, try to avoid situations where you have to pick between the two of us. And if it's unavoidable, make sure Jasper knows he always comes first in your life. It'll be easier for him not to resent me so much."

Edward didn't respond to her suggestion except to drag his hand down the length of his face and turn towards the full-length windows that lined the hallway.

"You're irritated now. I'm sorry. I'll butt out."

"Huh? Oh, no, it's not you. Your advice was, as usual, accurate and wise."

Bella waited briefly before she asked, "Then what is it?"

"Okay, so," Edward checked both ways down the hall and lowered his voice, "Jasper comes first, right? Only, I missed the part where I agreed to that. I know this is going to sound awful and selfish, but what about me? I'm twenty-four years old, and Jasper isn't even my kid. When does what I want come first in my life?"

Bella opened her mouth, then shut it again. Somewhat frustrated by her lack of answers when actually implored, Edward took a few steps past her. Thinking he was continuing the tour, Bella followed, only to bump into him when he turned back around.

"And here's the rub," Edward continued, catching her with both arms almost as an afterthought. "The past two years, I have given up my whole life for Jasper. And I'm not saying he hasn't given me a lot, too. But, I mean, you're right. I'm a fucking soccer mom. I'm twenty-four years old, and I'm a man, and I'm a FUCKING soccer mom." A slightly hysterical laugh escaped Edward's lips. "Ha! It feels so good to cuss. Fucking. Shit. Ass. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck."

Edward ripped around to search the hallways again. "I'm sorry," he said, letting go of Bella's arms and stepping back. "You never know when he might sneak up on you and hear something he shouldn't."

A clearly flabbergasted Bella asked, "Um, am I witnessing another one of your famous meltdowns?"

"No, no. This isn't a meltdown. This is just two years of what the fuck has my life become. And you know? It's fine. It's fine, it's fine, it's fine. Jasper is the best thing that has ever happened to me. And one day, when we get to That Place, I'll be able to explain that fully. My entire life revolves around him, and then this one thing comes along that I want for myself, and what does he do? He acts like a total jerk! What am I supposed to do with that?"

"Do you want me to answer that?"

"Probably not."

"Too bad. I'm going to anyway. You are supposed to remember what you were like at age twelve. And if you were the only selfless, altruistic preteen in the country, then ask me what I was like."

"What if I asked out of curiosity instead?"

With a gentle smile, Bella clasped her hands behind her back and started down the hallway again. Despite not knowing where she was going, Edward let her lead. "Seeing as you bore part of your soul to me, I guess it's not asking too much. I was a total brat. I remember thinking about myself 95% of the day. The rest of the time, I spent thinking about Justin Timberlake. I hated the men my mother dated. I was way worse than Jasper when I tortured them." She threw a significant look Edward's way.

"Only, in their cases, they deserved it, right?"

"Definitely," Bella nodded, before a crinkle formed in her brow. "Or did they? Oh, my God! Do I? Do I deserve this?" She gasped again. "Is this what karma looks like?"

What felt like _finally_, Edward let out a loud chuckle. "I'll tell you what. If it is karma, I won't feel so awful since you'd have this coming even if you hadn't met me."

"You shouldn't feel awful one way or another," Bella said, enjoying Edward's laughter. "I'm tough. I can handle whatever Jasper throws my way."

"I'm really glad to hear that. Like, _really _glad."

"And you shouldn't feel awful about the other thing, either. Ya know, regarding your feelings about your role in Jasper's life. Having doubts doesn't make you a bad person. Hell, people who give birth feel the same things and never figure it out. Look at my Mom. Look at Jasper's."

"I suppose. But when did I go from being the big brother to being the bad mother?"

"If I was a betting woman, I'd probably say around the time you gave him a wing in your house." Bella came to a halt along the wall of a wide, upstairs vestibule. "And for the record, you're not a bad mom. You're a Miss Honey."

Edward crossed his arms. "I have to wonder, why all the feminine references?"

"Find me a male equivalent to the teacher in _Matilda_, and we'll run with that," Bella said charmingly. "But until then, you're a Miss Honey. And that's a good thing. We all wanted one when we were Jasper's age. To be honest, it's the only reason I wanted to get to know you better after that first interview."

"That's nice to hear. Nothing to do with my natural charm and wit. Nope, it was all for the kid. I'm glad you only stormed out after I told you, then."

Searching the wide space over Edward's shoulder, Bella said, "This house is a labyrinth. Where are we?"

"You have led us to my wing of the house." Edward could feel a small jolt in Bella's frame as his hand swept past her waist, landing on the handle of a cracked door about a foot behind her. "This is my bedroom."

"Um, that's nice," Bella said, clearly not unreceptive to their unusually close proximity. "Do I get to see it?"

"Of course," Edward said. But instead of opening the door wider to let her in, he tugged it shut, inching her closer to him. Her lips were in kissing distance now. Could he muster the courage? "If we ever get to That Place."

A laugh-like whimper was Bella's response, followed by an almost frantic, "Jasper has my pillow."

Edward frowned, confused. "Tell me that's not from the couch metaphor earlier today, because that'd be weird." Bella gave a compassionate grimace, shaking her head as her eyes flicked down just past Edward's left arm. "Oh, God," Edward groaned, sagging. "Tell me Jasper isn't right behind me watching this whole thing unfold, because that would be even weirder."

Standing behind him, with a cheeky yet somehow angelic grin plastered on his face was Jasper, fully dressed in his uniform but for the cleats that were cast over his shoulder.

"I believe these are yours." Jasper handed Bella the pillow and a computer printout, then skipped away, cheerfully calling, "I'll meet you in the car!"

"I was actually going to offer to let you keep that pillow," Edward said.

"No, no, no, no, I can't take it away from its h-home," Bella couldn't stutter hastily enough, shoving the pillow back into Edward's arms. "Please take it back and keep it forever."

"You sure? I don't think I'll be able to look at a couch pillow again without associating it with Jasper's creepy smile."

"Me, as well. And that's pretty much why I don't want it anywhere near my bed."

"Good call. What's that?" Edward asked, pointing at the paper and throwing the pillow far, far behind him.

"It looks like something he printed off the web." Bella tilted the page up, so Edward could read it with her. A small patch of text was visible through a barrage of website ads that read:

**pix·i·lat·ed**

_adjective _

1. crazy; confused. 2. _slang_, drunk.

"What kind of crackpot online dictionary did Jasper use?" Edward practically squeaked.

Bella pointed to a logo in the top left-hand corner. "_Oxford Dictionary_."

"This is impossible," Edward said. "The word has adapted over the years. Obviously the root is from pixie, and that is a merry creature."

"So you're calling me a drunk fairy?" Bella asked.

Edward sighed. "I'm not wrong, and even if I am, it's okay. Remember, the world is an extraordinary place when you're slightly strange."

"And when you're slightly illiterate."

**_._**

_**.**_

_**.**_

**A/N:** Hey everyone! I just wanted to say thank you for all the amazing feedback you've given me. I haven't been able to respond back to reviews since the first chapter, because I'm still working on getting the _Swirl and Daisy_ chapters in order for posting next week. Forgive me, but know that I love and cherish each and every one!


	5. A Lesson in Criticism

The Thing Is… This Is a Chapter: _A Lesson in Criticism_

_**. . .**_

"Hey, ref!" Edward's hands were cupped around his mouth for maximum volume. "You couldn't make a call from a phone booth!"

"Nice one, Eddie," Mrs. Jenks complimented from four rows down. "Ref! Should I get you the number of my eye doctor now or later?"

"I don't get it," Bella said, leaning in to whisper. "The game hasn't started yet, but you're already heckling the referee?"

"That's because it's Seth. He has an infamous bias against the Bloodsuckers. He makes unfair calls, and he knows it."

Bella glanced around them. At least three other parents were quipping at the ref, who looked to be only nineteen or twenty. "Maybe it's because you're mean to him."

"Nah. Seth can handle himself. And he started it, really. Always ignoring the opposing teams' offsides and yellow-carding our boys when they haven't done anything."

"Why would he do that?"

Edward reclined against the top rail of the bleachers. He and Bella had sat several yards away from any of the other spectators, so they could talk freely during the game, but he still kept his voice low. "He doesn't like the company that sponsors the Bloodsuckers."

"Meaning… you," Bella concluded. On the car ride over, she'd learned how BITE, Inc. sponsored the team, while keeping Edward, and by extension Jasper, anonymous. Jasper had reemphasized that last word several times after insinuating Bella couldn't keep a secret. At the soccer field, Edward was just good ole' Eddie. _Only_ at the soccer field was he Eddie. Edward had done some reemphasizing of his own.

"Unfortunately, Seth is a member of a small but insufferable group that does not approve of how _BITE_ treats werewolves in the game."

"But there are no werewolves in _BITE_."

"Nor will there ever be. And therein lies the problem. Puerile werewolf loyalists."

"Why don't you have him fired, then?"

Edward's head lolled to the side flirtatiously. "You're so dreamy when you're spurious. You save the job of a fraud, like French Larry, but try to get poor Seth fired."

"I'm not trying to get him fired. I'm asking why you don't, if he's so unfair."

"Because this is youth soccer. Personal biases aside, it's hard to find refs that can keep up with the kids."

"If you say so," Bella trilled, taking out the questionnaire from earlier. It looked maybe seven pages deep. "Onto less bewildering questions that have absolutely nothing to do with soccer."

"I've been looking forward to this all morning. First question, please."

She cleared her throat with an air of mock-professionalism and asked, "Do you shower in the morning or at night?"

"I don't think that's a fair question," Edward said thoughtfully. "Because if I were to ask that, you'd think I was a perv."

"That's not true. This goes to compatibility. What if we're both morning showerers? Who gets dibs on the hot water?"

"You've been living with roommates too long," Edward said. "It doesn't matter with the mansion. I have seven full baths and a hot water heater the size of a small humpback whale."

"Just answer the question, Edward."

"Both, okay? I take a shower in the morning and at night. Sometimes I even fit a third during the afternoon. I like to be clean. Can you blame me?"

"You're hygienic. It's nothing to get defensive about." He lifted a skeptical eyebrow. "Hygienic and a freak. But no need to get defensive."

The players from both teams were making their way onto the field now. Jasper took his position as the forward on the left and waved up to the bleachers. Once Edward had returned the gesture, Jasper lifted his calf to stretch.

"Next question, please."

"Do you have any piercings?"

"Only the one," Edward said, sleek as a cucumber.

Bella's eyes darted to both of his holeless ears, before widening and involuntarily glancing down.

Not so cool now, Edward shifted. "I, uh, was kidding. My… ya know… isn't pierced."

A smirk crept over Bella's lips, so sinful it touched her eyes. "Oh, that's what you were going for," she said. "I thought you meant your belly."

Horror-struck, Edward pressed in on his navel. "God, no."

"Check it out." Bella pointed to the field. "Seth's starting the game."

Almost instantly, Edward's humiliation turned into enthusiasm. "What a tool. Watch this. He's going to place the ball slightly closer to the Purple People Eaters even though we won the coin toss. And he did. So predictable."

"I don't see anything," Bella said, right as Seth blew his whistle, signaling the start of the game.

From the millisecond cleat touched ball, Edward was focused on the back and forth of offense, defense, punts, and penalties. Seth's nefarious plan hadn't worked. The Bloodsuckers were in possession, skirmishing with the defensive players to narrow in on their first goal.

Next to him, Bella cheered when it was appropriate and threw the occasional question out to keep the conversation going. Continuous play made it difficult for Edward to take his eye off the game for any period of time, but he did his darnedest to respond. What was she asking now? Something about _Pinky and the Brain_. Edward strained his neck to get a better view of the ball. Of course he had watched _Pinky and the Brain_ as a kid.

Follow-up: Did it instill in him an intrinsic desire for world domination? Not really, but before Edward could tell her that, Number Nine took an easy shot and missed the net by several feet.

"Aw, nice try, Peter! Good hustle! You'll get the next one," cheered several of the spectators, including Edward. Once the applause died down, Edward mumbled behind his hand, "That kid actually sucks."

"Note: Sportsmanship? Not your thing," Bella ribbed.

But the ball was already back in play, and so went Edward's attention. "Stay focused and wait for your goal!" Edward shouted, sensing Jasper's impatience to score. Fifteen minutes into the game, his opening still hadn't come.

Mrs. Jenks turned around in her seat. "How many times do I gotta tell you, Eddie? Stop giving him that advice."

Unlike the other players, Jasper never took a shot he could miss. "What do you want me to say? He's got a one hundred percent success rate. I think that speaks for itself."

"Soccer isn't about percentages. It's about how many goals you score," Mrs. Jenks said, catching the attention of some of the other parents. "The more he shoots, the more he's gonna score."

"I agree with Jamie," Frank, father of oh-sucktress Number Nine, butted in.

"Yeah, I think we all know that," Edward said.

The whistle's trill sliced through the argument as Seth signaled a handball against the Bloodsuckers. There was a brief moment of silence before, "Come on, ref! You gotta call it both ways!"

"That was ball to hand! Ball to hand! Use your good eye, ref!"

"You weren't even watching," Seth yelled back at the mob. "All calls are at my discretion. It was hand to ball."

"Maybe if you tug your head outta your ass, you could call the game right."

A stroke on his left elbow made Edward jump. "Uh… sorry to interrupt," Bella said. "But should that man be using language like that at youth soccer?"

"The trick is to grumble when you cuss so the kids can't hear. Everything else you shout." The Purple People Eaters were lining up for their preposterously unmerited penalty kick, so Edward took a moment to ask, "Are you enjoying the game so far?"

"I am," Bella said sincerely. "I have no idea what's going on, but depending on what the parents and you are shouting, I know whether it's good or bad. And I'm enjoying you enjoying the game. You get hardcore into this."

"I'm sorry," Edward cringed. "I should have warned you ahead of time. Hey, do you have any more questions for me?"

"They can wait until later."

"No, no. Ask me," Edward insisted, now trying to focus on both the penalty kick and Bella.

"You sure?"

"Uh-ha."

"Okay, then," Bella said somewhere in the distance. Catching the ball with the tips of his fingers, the Bloodsucker goalie spun the ball to get a tighter grip, raised it over his head, and threw it towards Jasper, who now had the ball in a breakaway run. Sprinting like one of the sparkling vamps from _BITE_, there was no stopping him. He aligned his shot, positioned the ball, lifted his foot and….

"Have you ever, for any reason, gotten a manicure or pedicure?"

"YEAH!" Edward jumped to his feet, applauding almost violently. "You're the man, Jasper! You're the man! Woooo! Take that, Mrs. Jenks! How's that for 'soccer's about scoring'?"

"Settle down, Eddie. You're embarrassing yourself in front of your lady friend."

Swiftly looking back over his shoulder at Bella, Edward said softly, "I am so sorry. What was the question?"

"It doesn't matter," Bella said, laughing and tucking the questionnaire back in her hoodie pocket. "I think I should let you focus on the game. We can do this another time."

"I'll tell you what. I'll make this up to you by taking a day off work this week to spend with you. Pick a day. Any day."

"That sounds great, really, but I'm actually unavailable until next Friday."

"_Next_ Friday? As in, the Friday after this upcoming Friday?"

"That's the one."

Edward was only half joking when he asked, "Are you blowing me off?"

"No! No, not at all."

"That's not very encouraging," he prompted after no other explanation was forthcoming.

"It's just, I have this paper," Bella said, a slight shade of red coating her cheeks. "And a draft is due next Friday. And it's worth a huge percentage of my grade. And well, I haven't even started it yet, so these next two weeks are going to be hell."

"Oh, Bella… you are so screwed."

Her mouth dropped open. "I can't believe you said that."

"You're the one who likes honesty! And if you're talking about your senior thesis, which I highly suspect is the case—"

"Fine. I am screwed. You could at least be nice about it."

"If it helps, I'm also feeling awful for you right now." Edward couldn't help pushing her buttons. He was too relieved she had a legitimate excuse for her unavailability. "Two weeks to write a thesis. Wow-_ow_. I wouldn't have taken you for a procrastinator."

Bella brandished a stern finger. "I may not be the best student, but that does _not_ make me a procrastinator."

"True. The fact that you waited until the last moment to write your senior thesis makes you a procrastinator."

"I did not wait. I happen to have—" Hands balling into fists on her thighs, Bella winced. "Never mind. Watch the game."

Edward studied her face for several moments. She guardedly glanced sideways, confirming his second theory of the afternoon. "You're hiding something from me."

A fake laugh forced it's way from Bella's throat. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yes, you are! And you can't deny it, because you can't lie!"

"I— Look! Jasper has the ball!"

"Don't try to distract me with soccer."

Bella sighed but didn't look away from the field. "I don't force you to divulge every detail of your work life. I expect the same courtesy here. Respect the rules of That Place."

Something was whispering in Edward's ear that he needed to know, that this was about him. After a moment's contemplation, he made his offer. "I'll give you Jasper's parents."

"What?" Bella asked sharply.

"Well, I'm not going to gift wrap them and put them under a tree. But I'll tell you anything you want to know."

"You're negotiating with info on Jasper's parents?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds. I'd already decided I was going to tell you anyway."

"Nonetheless, you're taking Jasper's story and using it as a bargaining chip."

"Jasper would appreciate my cunning in this situation."

A battle warred behind Bella's eyes. "I don't know," she said. "Wouldn't that be an invasion of Jasper's privacy?"

"He's a kid. He doesn't get the privilege of privacy. And even if it is an invasion, you had no problem prying before I asked something in return. Which is how I know that you want this… bad."

"Ah! This is so wrong," Bella moaned. "Yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes."

"Yes!" Edward said, rubbing his hands together excitedly. "You first."

"Why me?"

"I can't very well talk about Jasper's parents here." Edward jerked his head towards Jasper, who was taking a turn on the bench. "Why don't I take you out to eat Wednesday night? I'll make sure Jasper stays with a friend so no interruptions."

"That'd be great, except I can't do anything this week. Remember? My thesis."

"Right. Your thesis. Tell me all about that."

Bella was quiet for what felt like forever. And motionless. Agonizingly motionless. "I'm a creative writing major," she said. "So I chose to write a series of short stories that all converged together. I completed the draft of my thesis several weeks ago."

"So… you lied and really are blowing me off?" Edward asked, sounding more hurt than he'd intended.

"Of course not. If I didn't want to see you again, I'd come out and tell you like a man. And I only use that phrase because there are certain stereotypes about how women break up that I've seen confirmed multiple times by many, many women but most especially by Jessica. So saying I'd tell you like a woman wouldn't have the same—"

"The point, Bella."

"I have to throw out my original thesis and rewrite it from scratch with an entirely new theme and storyline. Nothing is salvageable."

"Did your instructors not approve of your topic?"

"No, they loved it."

"Then, why?"

"I don't know, Edward. Because the weirdness of humans is unlimited, especially in BITE-hards."

_An excellent slogan for _BITE_ merchandise_, Edward thought, making a mental note. But, "What does _BITE_ have to do with this?"

Bella buried her head in her hands. "The short stories I wrote were based on roleplays I'd created in the game."

That was it? Bella's grand confession? Edward choked down a laugh. "That's plagiarism, you naughty vampire."

"No!" she said, sitting up. "I promise, I created everything. I spent hours and hours imagining up the scenarios and getting my coven to act them out. I mean, I _played_ the characters, developed the settings. Everything. I just happened to do it in your world."

"Whoa, it's okay. Calm down." Wrapping his arm around her hunched shoulders, Edward gave a comforting squeeze. "I was joking. People do this all the time."

"Oh, I bet!" If possible, Bella was even more frantic. "I bet there's just thousands of desperate students out there who steal your ideas, because they're too pathetic to come up with their own."

"Sure. I mean, no." Edward scrambled for an explanation that would ease her concerns. "We create a virtual environment, but the BITE-hards are the people who fill the game with wonderful characters and adventures. Think about it; the avatars most people create represent themselves. We can't claim ownership over that."

Focusing a little too hard on the soccer game, Bella said, "When I quit playing _BITE_, I thought I was done with that part of my life. The thesis was supposed to be a way to make sense of all the time and money I'd spent on it."

"We have millions and millions of users who play this game. Most of them have segmented off into their own corner of _BITE_'s world. It's vast and it's endless. You have no idea…" Edward didn't even have an idea. The only person who did was a twelve-year-old boy currently head-butting a soccer ball towards the wrong end of the field. "If a few thousand BITE-hards want to use what they've produced in the game to pass a class, well, I'm not going to begrudge them that. It's the least I can do to thank them for, as you put it, wasting all their time and money playing my game."

Breaking her gaze from the field to turn towards Edward, Bella rested her chin on her upturned palm. "But then I met you," she said. "And all that time and money made sense anyway. Without every hour and every dime, I would have never gotten your interview."

Her hair blew lightly with the wind, entrancing Edward. "And without Jasper," he said, thinking back to their earlier conversation, "I would have never gotten you."

The air around them swirled with crackling energy. He felt it. She felt it. All he had to do was be brave and lean in. And he was going to do it. His spine tingled as his eyes flickered down to her lips, and his upper body practically melted forward.

But before his kiss could land, Bella jerked back and screeched. In his peripheral, Edward saw something white and black hurtling straight towards them. Instinctively, he stuck his arm out to deflect the ball from hitting Bella, if only that were where it was headed. A loud grunt made its way through Edward's chest as the ball smashed into his torso.

Once the initial impact had passed, Edward shot out of his seat. "Goddamn it, Jasper!" he yelled, searching the field for the culpable party.

"Language, Eddie," Mrs. Jenks snapped. "And if you were paying an ounce of attention, you'd know Jasper ran off to the bathroom a minute ago."

To confirm her story, Jasper meandered back onto the field. Seth blew his whistle to signal a foul against the Purple People Eaters, and one of the kids waved a halfhearted apology.

Bella was beside herself, giggling into the back of her hand. "You're supposed to grumble when you cuss so the kids can't hear."

"That obviously does not apply here," Edward said, tossing the ball back to Seth and sitting down. This time, he pulled Bella close and left his arm around her shoulders. They watched the game quietly for only a few seconds before he couldn't take not hearing her voice anymore. "What's it going to take for me to get to read your thesis?"

Bella snuggled closer to Edward; his heart did an elated little leap. "What makes you think I would ever let you read my thesis?"

"It would be extremely beneficial for you. Did you know I was a Russian Literature major?"

"You may have mentioned it a few times."

"And there is that whole 'I'm the CEO of BITE' thing."

"I think that actually works against you."

"Come on. What am I going to have to do?"

"Probably something disgusting."

"How disgusting?"

"I'm thinking pancakes with ketchup. I'm still interested to know what that tastes like."

"Then ask Jasper!"

"I need someone with normal taste buds."

After negotiating over pancakes with ketchup, they went back to Bella's list. From Bella's list they stumbled upon a mutual love for cheese. From cheese, they went onto Marvel versus DC. From Marvel, onto a million other things. That game, Edward failed to watch three of Jasper's goals, but Jasper didn't fail to watch Edward not watching.

_**. . .**_

Three stacks of paper sat on Edward's desk: an untouched pile of _BITE_ tasks, Bella's thesis, and every blackmail letter received thus far. The most recent contribution to that last stack was a blown-up photo of Edward arguing with Jasper on the porch of the restaurant he'd taken Bella to on their first date. Spelled out at the bottom of the picture in the usual magazine letters was one word: _Soon_.

A note in Emmett's handwriting requesting a phone appointment to discuss options was paperclipped to the picture. Edward hadn't gathered the nerve to face it, yet. He'd hardly moved since Carmen had walked in with the mail over an hour ago. Never had his office felt so empty and pointlessly large. He'd gotten them caught. _Caught_.

"I am a very stupid man," Edward mumbled to no one.

"You're not stupid. You're a Russian Literature major."

Edward shot up in his chair. "Jasper?" Startled into not knowing what to do, he hovered awkwardly over his desk before spinning around desperately. "Jasper, what the— Where are you?" No response. "Jasper Whitlock, I swear on Alice you will be grounded for two weeks if you don't reveal yourself _now_. You're supposed to be in school."

"No need for threats you'll never follow through on." Jasper's voice was crisp and clear, as if he were right in front of Edward. Only he wasn't. "I'm sitting in the school library. This is all in you're head."

_Typical_, Edward thought, searching his desk to isolate the audio's source. "Honesty is a virtue."

"I bugged your office, fun-sucker."

"You did what?"

"Look under your desk."

Using the light from his cell phone's screen, Edward ducked down and scanned the darkened space. "What am I looking for?"

"A tiny box taped to the left, back corner of your desk." Sure enough, Edward yanked down a mechanism about the size of a Tic Tac container. "It's a two-way transponder, kind of like a walkie-talkie, except I can listen in whenever I want without you knowing."

The device vibrated slightly when Jasper spoke. Edward wanted to crush it with his bare hands. "You are a freak of nature."

"I am _not_ a freak. I have a right to know what's going on."

"Not this way. It's a complete invasion of my privacy."

"Since when do you need privacy?"

"Since when do you need to spy on me to get information?"

"Since _she_ came along."

"Not this again," Edward groaned.

"I'm telling you. Something is up with her. First IHOP, then the interview, and now her paper. She's set this all up to maneuver her way into the company."

"I'm not talking about this anymore with you," Edward said. He had begged Bella to not tell Jasper she'd written a _BITE_-related thesis, explaining about the boy's insane conspiracy theories, which had only solidified her decision. Complete transparency was essential to gain his trust, she'd said. Either she was telling Jasper about the thesis, or she was spending the next two weeks re-writing it altogether.

The second option meant he wouldn't see Bella for two weeks. Therefore, it wasn't an option at all. The first option left him with… well, this. "Think about it, Edward. How else could someone get the CEO of BITE to read their stuff?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? She didn't even want me to read her thesis. I had to bribe her. Quite heftily, I might add."

"That's what I'm saying! She's an evil genius! She's almost as smart as I am!"

"Stop shouting. Aren't you in the library?"

"It's okay. I'm the only one around. My computer teacher sent me here after I taught her a few Excel shortcuts.

"Again? Jasper, we talked about this. You can't draw too much attention to your computer skills." Edward eyed the blackmail. "It could make someone suspicious."

"It's only Microsoft. No biggie."

Edward swept up the pile of blackmail and packed it away in his briefcase, glad he'd put off the conversation with Emmett if Jasper had been listening in. He'd deal with that panic attack when he was prepared. "Just be careful."

"Sure, sure. So what's up? I've never heard so many 'Oh, gods' and 'Tut, tuts' from you in such a short period of time. What were you reading?"

"Don't worry about it. It's none of your business."

"It is my business if you don't want me to tell Bella you slept with a teddy bear until you were fifteen."

"I did not!" Edward was furious that he dared make such an accusation (and curious at how he found about Mr. James Tiberius III).

"Bella will never believe you. Fess up."

Edward flopped down in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "It's nothing. It was, uh, Bella's paper," he said, thinking back to what he was doing before the mail came.

"Was it terrible?" Jasper asked hopefully.

"No, it wasn't terrible at all. In fact, the plot was exceptional. You should read it; you might get some ideas. There's this part where a vampire builds an army of newborns to attack—"

"Shup! I can't hear this. I don't want her ideas."

"What's the—"

"How can you not see what she's doing? She thinks you're the person who comes up with the ideas and that if you like her ideas enough, you'll put them in the game, and then we'll have to pay her."

"You are the most insufferably paranoid person on the planet."

"I take that as a compliment. If the paper was so good, why all the brooding?"

Edward slid the thesis closer to him on the desk and thumbed through the pages. Red circles and margin notes were marked on the majority of them. Bella's writing on her thesis was about as good as her writing on his newspaper interview, which was to say terrible. Not in the mood to give Jasper any more ammunition against Bella, he said, "I have to go. Busy, busy, busy."

"Teddy bear."

"It was a decent thesis but not a perfect one. It has a lot of flaws."

"You can't tell her that," Jasper said immediately. Then, "On second thought, tell her the truth. Tell her it sucks. She'll dump you for sure."

"Ha-ha," Edward said dryly. "I have to be honest. That was one of the conditions of my being able to read it."

"I read somewhere that the best way to give a person bad news is to email it to them."

"Really?" Edward asked, checking his watch. It was later than he'd thought; Bella would be here any minute. "I was just planning on cushioning the blow with some positive feedback."

"Cushion it?"

"You know, like a hamburger bun," he said, straightening the supplies on his desk. "I'll mention some of the paper's finer qualities to soften her up; that's the top bun. Then I'll give her the critique; that's the hamburger. Then I'll give her more positive feedback, which will be the bottom bun."

"Isn't the hamburger normally the best part of a bun?"

"It's a metaphor."

"I think you should give her a little bit of positive feedback first, then give her the hamburger, and then give her a lot more positive feedback."

"That's not the way a hamburger works," Edward said dismissively, focusing on how his pencils were displayed.

"Yes, it is! You have a big bun and a small bun."

"And you'll notice that the big bun is on the top of the hamburger. Ergo, you give her a lot of positive feedback first, then a smaller amount of feedback after. "

"But your tongue tastes the bottom layer of a hamburger first. Therefore, the smaller critique should go first."

"If this is an email, it's physical—"

"It's not physical!" Jasper interrupted. "It's digital!"

Edward gritted his teeth, annoyed. "Fine, then. It's visual. So we're going with the visual of how a hamburger is, and the big bun is on top."

"Technically, one consumes an email just like a person consumes a hamburger. Whether it's through your eyes or through your mouth, it makes no difference."

"That doesn't even— That is the stupidest thing. The hamburger was my idea. Get your own metaphor." There was a knock on Edward's door. "Scratch that. I have to go."

"But—"

"Business meeting. Have to go." Without waiting for Jasper to say his goodbyes, Edward dropped the bug to the ground and squashed it with his foot.

_. . ._

Spending the past two hours sulking hadn't done Edward any favors. He hated being unprepared, and with Bella sitting in front of him with notebook and pen at the ready for CEO-worthy wisdom, he felt even more foolish, aimlessly clicking around on the computer as he failed again and again to locate her story on his hard drive.

"I have to admit, this wasn't at all what I'd expected to read from you," he said to fill the silence that had surrounded them since their exchange of obligatory niceties.

"It wasn't? What were you expecting?"

"Porn, mostly." Edward waited for Bella's flustered reaction before adding a, "Kidding."

"Funny," Bella said.

"You'd be surprised by how many people use _BITE_ to act out their sexual fantasies."

"Actually, I wouldn't be surprised."

Edward's head popped up. "Did you ever…"

A devious grin flickered onto Bella's lips.

"Oh," Edward said, not knowing exactly how he felt about that but now more determined than ever to find her paper.

"Kidding," she said. The relief that surged through Edward went all the way down to his toes. "What are you doing over there, anyway? Rewriting my paper?"

"No, I'm trying to find it, so I can print out a clean copy. It'll be easier for you to follow along that way."

"Why don't you check your downloads folder? Or go to your recently opened tab? Or just use your search feature?"

So Bella was a computer genius like Jasper. _Hot_. "Where can I find any one of those functions?"

Bella raised her eyebrows. "You see that little bar with the magnifying glass next it? That's your search feature."

"Ah." Edward located the bar and slowly typed into it: _Bite Me by Bella Swan_. "Thank you. Carmen normally does this stuff for me. Computers are not my thing."

"They're not?" The _BITE_ posters mounted on the office's walls told a different story. "Didn't you program the entire first version of _BITE_ by yourself?"

He could have panicked, but years of fraudulence did not let Edward down. "What I meant was that because Carmen does so many of the basic computer things for me, they sometimes slip my mind. Same with programming. And earlier, when you asked me what I'd expected from your story," he smoothly changed the topic, "it was something starring the _BITE_ version of Bella Swan. As I said at the soccer game, most people play themselves on _BITE_, but I didn't see you in here at all."

"That's a good thing, isn't it?"

The search function had worked like a charm. Edward opened the document and hit print. "For your thesis' sake, I'd say absolutely. But I was a little disappointed for myself. I thought I was going to learn some secrets about you."

"At first, I did play a character that was very similar to myself, but it got boring after a while, which is why I created and played all these other far more interesting characters. You should have seen me; I'd steal Jessica and Angela's computers, so I could play them all at once. I was a total loser."

"Your characters were genuinely well-rounded and appealing," Edward said, watching page after page of _Bite Me_ slip out of the printer's mouth. "But maybe one day, I'll get to know the boring Bella character."

"Maybe. If we ever get to That Place."

Edward smiled. They were inching closer to That Place with every meeting. Still, he couldn't help but taunt, "What makes you think I won't look you up in the _BITE_ database right now?"

"The fact that I'm seriously beginning to doubt you could even work that database." That was fair. "And the whole thing about being a decent human being who would never invade my privacy that way."

Edward made a note to restrict Jasper's access to the server.

"Here we are," he said, pulling the finished stack of papers from the printer, straightening and handing them over to Bella. "Now let's begin with your strong points."

Edward launched into a detailed account of all the aspects of her story he'd enjoyed: the newborn army the villain had created to seek revenge for her deceased lover, the immortal children and their consequent demise if discovered, the idea that vampires would mate for existence when they fell in love. He even appreciated some of the changes she'd made to the _BITE_ universe to make her story more interesting, such as limiting the number of "gifts" a vampire could obtain to one apiece.

"It makes sense," Edward said. "The gifts raise in value if there are fewer to go around."

"That's what I thought," Bella said, happily writing down everything Edward was saying.

"Tell me, did boring _BITE _Bella have a gift?"

"As a matter of fact, she was a shield."

"And did _BITE_ Bella ever find another vampire to mate with?"

Bella laughed. "I just threw you a bone. You don't get two."

"You can't blame me. If you were as effervescent on the screen as you are in person, the vamps were probably all over you."

The notebook Bella was writing in lifted just enough to cover her mouth. Edward imagined she was hiding a smile. "Okay, stop with all the sweet talk, and tell me what's wrong with my story. I know you've been dallying around it."

Now came the hard stuff. "Do you want me to give it to you straight, or do you want me to cushion it some more?"

"What do you think?

Straight it was. "Your ideas are remarkable, but the writing itself is weak. Let's take the opening chapter, for instance."

"You mean the prologue?"

It definitely was not a prologue, but there were more important things to discuss. "Yes, the first few pages of the story. The writing felt rushed, almost as if you were trying to fit too much in one chapter."

"It's a prologue."

"The reader can sense your inexperience in this chapter—"

"Prologue."

"—and the reader should never be aware of the author pulling the puppet strings. They should be lost in the words, not the writer."

"It is a prologue," Bella said, flippantly dropping her pen and notepad in her lap.

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "Bella, I hate to disagree with you on this, but it is not a prologue. A prologue sets up the story, perhaps by showing a scene in the past or one that happens in the future. Your chapter is already part of the story."

"Maybe it's not in the traditional sense of the word, but my prologue _does_ set everything up."

"So it's not exactly a prologue, but definitely not a chapter," Edward said. "Can we argue this later? I'm kind of making a different point here."

Bella grabbed the printed manuscript instead of her pen and notebook, sifted through the opening pages, and said something that Edward didn't catch, fixated as he was on his phone's screen. _She should quit while she's behind_, the text message read.

It was from Jasper.

No. It wasn't possible… "We should go," Edward said brusquely, not even wanting to consider the possibility that Jasper had another set of ears in this office. "I'm hungry. Let's finish going over this at a restaurant."

"But I thought you couldn't leave until later today?" a startled Bella asked.

"What's the point of being a CEO if you can't say, 'To hell with it! I'm leaving early,' once every three years? And we have a lot more to go over: adverbs, saidisms, the proper use of 'that' versus 'which.' Wouldn't it be better over a plate of fries or something Chinese?"

"Oh… okay." Bella closed her notebook. "But before we go, do you mind if I give you something?"

"Does it have to be here, or perhaps you could give it to me at the restaurant?"

"It'll be quick," Bella said, pulling a file folder out of her bookbag. "I made you something for being awesome about everything." She handed Edward the folder. "I put it in there, because I didn't want the glitter to get everywhere."

"Glitter?" Edward repeated, opening the folder. His breath caught when he saw what was inside.

Was this what it meant for his heart to swell? Real sand was glued to the bottom of a piece of printer cardstock to create the illusion of the beach. Hints of glitter brought the sunset and bonfire to life, while flakes of artificial snow made up the ashes. Best of all, she'd hand-drawn herself and Edward into the scene, roasting marshmallows over the flame, a box of graham crackers at their feet. Jasper was even there, sitting in the sand and holding up a drawing of a girl with fangs. He was pointing to a tagline under the girl that said, _Bella sucks_.

Bella was no artist, but she'd created That Place.

"I, uh, I don't have words," Edward said, shaking his head to overcome the knot of emotion in his chest.

"Says the self-proclaimed wordsmith. I know it looks like a five-year-old could have done it. I'm no Monet…"

"It's a masterpiece." Edward was having a hard time dragging his eyes away from the scene. "It's everything I imagined it would be."

The irritating and unrelenting buzz of his cell phone was an unwelcome reminder of reality. Jasper's name popped up on the caller ID. Edward silenced him, then turned the drawing over. The words _If We Ever Get To That Place_ were inscribed above Bella's signature. "Thank you. This was the best present you could have ever given me."

"I'm glad you like it," Bella said, watching Edward take extra care to put it safely back into its folder and then into a special pocket of his briefcase that would prevent it from wrinkling. "What are those?" she asked.

Edward followed her line of sight to the stack of blackmail he'd stuffed in earlier. "Nothing nearly as important as what you gave me," he said, snapping his briefcase shut. "Where do you want eat? Pick anywhere."

"I would say IHOP, 'cause it almost seems appropriate for us to further discuss my paper while you eat your part of the deal. But alas, I've already pulled two shifts there this week and have two to go," Bella said. "Chili's?"

"A college classic." Edward was more than relieved he wasn't going to have to fulfill his promise to eat an entire plate of pancakes with ketchup quite yet. His phone buzzed again. "Do you mind if I take this one last call before we go? It's business, but it'll be brief."

Bella nodded. "I'll wait in the hall."

Once the door was shut behind her, Edward answered the phone with an abrupt, "Yes?"

"You think I'd go through the trouble of bugging your office for one lousy transponder that could be easily found with the shift of your knee?"

"You're a dead man."

"Stop exaggerating and tell me what was in the folder. I'm dying here."

"None of your business."

"Teddy bear."

"Not going to work this time." Worried that Jasper might burn it if found, Edward opened his briefcase and took the drawing out, placing it in the false bottom of his desk drawer. "But you should be prepared, I'm going to ask her to be my girlfriend."

Silence met this declaration.

"When?" broke Jasper's voice.

Before the briefcase was shut, Edward caught one last glimpse of the word written on the blackmailer's photo.

"Soon."


	6. A Lesson in Farewell

A Chapter is a Chapter is a Chapter, and This is Certainly a Chapter:_ A Lesson in Farewell_

_**. . .**_

7:00 a.m. on a Thursday, Edward leaned against the railing of his deck as the salty bay breeze swept the strands of his freshly washed hair into their usual messy quaff. It was a Fabio-esque scene, despite the presence of a shirt. He'd woken up in a blissful haze of calm this morning, a sense that everything was going to work itself out ripe in his gut.

Even if the blackmailer did reveal him for the fraud he was, resulting in his shameful and disgracing eviction from the business world, he was still a millionaire. And if the government found it within their power to seize his bank account and major assets, then all the better! There was one thing they couldn't take from him: the fake Russian Literature degree Emmett had forged. He'd take that, ditch his abysmal reputation in the United States, and do what he'd always dreamt about in college by running away to Europe to become a specialist in the lives and works of obscure Russian authors.

His plans for the future weren't to be construed as giving up. He was dedicated to throwing everything he had at fixing this blackmail situation; hundreds of jobs and the dreams of one little boy hinged on it. But after fretting over it all night, the awareness hit him that no matter what happened, he was going to be okay. And perhaps a certain small percentage of his heart was telling him that it wouldn't be so bad. He could get his life back, travel around Europe without business-tripping, finally finish reading _War and Peace_. Perhaps if Bella liked him enough, she'd look past the scandal and go with him. No one would appreciate her terrible writing quite like Europe.

"_This is Bella Swan. Sorry I missed your call_," Bella's voicemail chirped, Edward having called her after catching the whim from his last train of thought._ "But I've won a trip to the moon. As you listen to this, I'm getting strapped into the shuttle. Wish me luck by leaving a message, or don't._"

Edward shook his head, a smile stretching across his face from ear to ear. She was such a hilarious, beautiful, special girl, and he was one question away from making her his girlfriend. He could hardly contain the animation in his voice as the beep sounded. "Hey, Bella. It's Edward. Congratulations on your trip to the moon. Tonight, I'll watch to see if I can spot you somewhere on its surface. And hey, give me a call when you get back. I'd love to see you sometime soon." A pause devoted to a brief debate prefaced the next sentence. "Not only do I have to make good on my end of our deal, but I have something I want to ask you. That was stupidly vague. Now I'm wishing I hadn't said it, but I'm probably making it worse by rambling about it. Please forgive this entire message as an endearing quirk. Okay, I'm shutting up now. Call me. Bye."

After ending the call, Edward stuffed the phone into his pant pocket and stretched his back using the porch railing as an anchor. This was his favorite part of the house. The oak porch wrapped around his entire wing, easily accessed by any one of three French doors that connected it to his bedroom and overlooked a particular cherry tree Edward had grown fond of. He found himself coming out here when it wasn't raining to observe the beguiling pattern of moss that grew up its trunk and watch the willowing branches of pink blossoms rustle with the wind. It was serene and never denied him the time and space to stand there in meditation.

"Edward?"

Amended: It never denied him the time and space to stand there in meditation when Jasper wasn't around to interrupt, which was mostly never.

"EDWARD!" This time the call came in a panicked shriek that sent Edward flying back to the house.

He spotted Jasper standing next to his bed. The boy appeared to be in perfect health, except for his jaw hanging open in horror. "Jasper? Are you okay?" Edward asked, grasping his heart as he caught his breath.

There was no response from Jasper. He didn't even look up. Edward's unmade bed obscured his vision from seeing what Jasper was staring at so intently but was remedied by a slight step to his left. His stomach sunk.

Edward's briefcase was propped open on his bed, and a dozen or so papers, instantly recognizable as the blackmail, were scattered over the sheets and on top of the briefcase's mouth. Jasper held the first communication, the one he'd already seen weeks ago, that read, "I know your secret," in his left hand and the final communication, which was the picture of Edward and Jasper, in his right.

"I know you're freaking out, but it's going to be okay," Edward automatically reassured. "Even if they know about us, we're going to find a way to stop them. Emmett and I have a meeting set up this morning to discuss our options. You weren't supposed to find out this way, but I was going to tell you just as soon as I talked to—"

"Bella."

Jasper had said it so quietly, Edward prayed he'd misheard. "What was that?"

"It's Bella," Jasper declared. "She was there that night. She took this photo. She doesn't want a job at BITE, Inc. She wants to ruin us and take all our money!"

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't have the energy to keep having this argument with you, Jasper."

"Think about it! We started getting blackmail letters right before we met her. Coincidence? I think not. And now she knows everything. She's going to make her final—"

"What do you mean now she knows everything?"

Jasper looked like a deer caught in headlights. "I— You… um. What?"

"Are you accusing me of something?" Edward asked bitterly. "Spit it out."

"It could have been Renee," was Jasper's meek reply.

"If you're going to be throwing around accusations, you might as well stand by them. But what am I getting so upset over? I've given you _so_ many reasons to distrust me over my _years_ of dedication to you and your company."

"I'm the one who should be angry here. How could you not tell me the blackmail had gotten so bad?"

"Because I didn't realize it myself until we received that," Edward pointed to Jasper's right hand, "yesterday."

"Yesterday? You mean the day Bella finally got what she wanted when you read her _BITE_ story?"

"Stop it."

"Great comeback, E.D. Running out of ways to defend your girlfriend, because you know she's the blackmailer?"

Wiping a disgruntled hand down his face, Edward considered his next move. He was done with Jasper acting like a spoiled brat, and there was only one way this was going to get resolved. "I will bet you a million dollars it isn't Bella."

To any normal or sane person that might have sounded like a nonsensical exaggeration, but it was quite common for Emmett, Edward, and Jasper to bet a million on all manner of things: sports, facts, Edward's use of the word "phantasmagoria." Money shifted around the accounts quite often, and they all won and lost enough that it balanced out in the end. It was a great way to keep the fun in their relationships or, as in this case, diffuse an argument.

Stopping his assault on Bella to reflect on Edward's outstretched hand, Jasper asked, "What are your terms?"

"If it isn't Bella, you have to drop all of your preposterous allegations and make an effort to get along with her."

"And if it is?"

"Obviously I will dump her in a public and humiliating fashion."

It was a true testament to how thoroughly he believed Bella was the blackmailer that Jasper shook Edward's hand and said, "Deal."

_**. . .**_

An index finger held up in Emmett's direction indicated Edward needed a minute to finish his call. He mumbled two more questions into the phone, liked the answers, said thank you, and hung up. "Sorry, that was Jasper's school. I'm checking in every few hours to make sure he's going to his classes instead of taking this blackmail mess into his own hands. You hear that, Jasper?" he asked, speaking louder. "Even if I'm not there, I'm watching you."

Emmett cast a confounded glance around the office. "What the…?"

"Long story," Edward said, grabbing his phone and the folder of blackmail. "Walk with me; it isn't safe to talk in here. And you may want to get someone over to your office to check for bugs."

"What kind of bugs? Don't say spiders." Emmett gave a sort of girly quiver.

"Mechanical bugs, like the kind Jasper can use to spy on us without our knowledge." One buzz of Edward's phone signaled a text message, and he checked it, hoping Bella was returning his phone call. "Ah, you see?" Edward held up his phone so Emmett could read. _I didn't put them in Emmett's office_, or so said Jasper. "I'd check anyways. He's a sly fellow."

A look of pure delight crossed Emmett's face. "I'm so proud of you, little man. I have taught you well."

Edward practically pushed Emmett out of the office (not an easy feat) and hissed, "Don't encourage him."

"But I'm the fun uncle. It's my job to make him as incorrigible as possible," Emmett said, laughing his way over to Carmen's reception desk at the end of the hallway. "Where can a fun uncle get a cup o' joe 'round here?"

"Ignore the Neanderthal, Carmen. He isn't half as gifted as you are," Edward said, feeling that the middle-aged assistant deserved every ounce of praise and esteem thrown her way for the sheer number of inane computer tasks she was asked to perform on Edward's behalf. Perform them, she did, and with nary a judgmental or disparaging glance towards her technology-challenged boss.

"I really don't mind getting Mr. McCarty his coffee, sir," she said.

"Don't be absurd," Edward said, reaching over the reception counter, picking up the desk phone, and dialing an extension number. The least he could do to repay her benevolence, aside from actually paying her, was to not send her on mundane coffee runs. The BITE, Inc. cafeteria picked up its end of the phone, and Edward requested the coffee trolley be sent up to the loft.

BITE, Inc. employed 250 or so programmers, web designers, illustrators, advertisers, and anyone else needed to run a thriving, international MMORPG, the majority of whom worked at BITE headquarters: a sizable, remodeled church that Jasper had hand-selected with an unholy sense of irony. The second floor of BITE, Inc. was loft-like, circling above what Edward liked to call the Bitcave. He was the only one who liked to call it that, everyone else referring to it simply as the first floor. The Bitcave was an open workspace filled with hundreds of desks and no cubicles.

There was a place along the loft where the railing and floor peaked in to form a point. Sometimes, Edward went to that spot to think. There was something powerful and humbling about watching the BITE, Inc. employees mill around; this was the one part of the company Edward could honestly take credit for. Jasper had created _BITE_, Emmett had paved the way for their success, and Edward had built it. Edward brought Emmett to the loft's peak now, hoping the workers would inspire a solution to _BITE_'s demise and beat down that fraction of Edward's heart that almost wished for it.

"Where do we begin?" Edward asked, setting the folder of blackmail on the loft's thick railing.

"Until we receive the blackmailer's demands, there's really no point in discussing anything other than the potential fallout and how we're going to handle it. The way I see it, the first thing we need is a strategy for handling Jasper's parents," Emmett said, not to Edward's surprise. "Because if this comes out, those greedy bastards are the only ones with a chance of suing our pants off."

Edward and Emmett hadn't been unaware of the risk they'd taken on by bringing _BITE_ to fruition. No matter how neglectful Jasper's parents were, they were still his parents and had a legal claim to whatever earnings Jasper acquired. From the off, Edward steadfastly refused to let them profit a penny from Jasper's creation, even if _BITE_ only ever made pennies.

Of all the roadblocks to building a successful business, this had been the rockiest to navigate. It had taken every bit of Emmett and Edward's combined brainpower to pull it off in a manner that would give them legal standing. They'd even gone as far as setting up an anonymous computer-exchange program for Jasper's school, so they could lawfully obtain Alice and, with her, the rights to all _BITE_ data. The cost of buying each and every one of those kids' new computers had been tremendous during a time when _BITE_ was just getting on its feet, and the fact remained that no matter how many tricks they had up their sleeves or loopholes they exploited, what they were doing was shady at best.

"I assume they're still unaware of your financial status?" Emmett asked

Surveying the hustle and bustle below him, Edward gave an acidic nod. The largest component to their success had been blinding Jasper's parents to all this. Luckily, or depending on how you looked at it, sadly, the Whitlocks didn't exactly make it a challenge. They knew of Edward, all right. In fact, they met with him for lunch every two months at Edward's insistence to discuss Jasper's progress in school and extracurricular activities. But between Mr. Whitlock's iPhone and Mrs. Whitlock's lackadaisical nature, they'd never even bothered to ask Edward what his last name was.

"I suppose we'll have to clue them in now," Edward said forlornly. He hated the way the Whitlocks treated Jasper, but he couldn't deny there were perks to their inattention. Forget _BITE_. Edward wouldn't have the time or friendship he did with Jasper, or perhaps have ever met him, if they were better parents. But money changed everything, and Edward wasn't naïve enough to believe their friendship would be immune. "I have a lunch with them planned for next week. I dare to predict Jasper's dad might even put down his cell phone."

"Let's not be hasty. We still don't know what the blackmailer wants. It could be something we're willing to negotiate on."

"Emmett, I think we both always knew that if our secret got out, we were finished." A feathery lightness suffused Edward's stomach, the cover of _War and Peace_ floating around in his head. "But if it is going to come, I'm not afraid to take the fall. You could have very well not known anything about this."

"Hell no! I'm going down with this ship. I knew what I was signing up for."

Edward was touched by Emmett's loyalty and awkwardly said so. There was something comforting about the notion of not standing alone when he lost his job and was forever labeled a con artist.

"You know, there could be a way around all this," Emmett said alluringly, as if he was dangling the forbidden fruit to Eve. "A way Jasper's parents would forgo any perceived right to Jasper's fortune without knowing it."

"I'm not going to make a life-altering decision with an axe hanging over my neck," Edward said firmly. "And anyway, that solves next to nothing. I become the man who stole a kid's brilliant idea and then adopted him to cover my ass. Forget the PR nightmare for the company. I'll go to jail for child exploitation, and Jasper will end up back with his parents or worse."

"You're right. I spoke too hastily," Emmett said, never one to shy away from admitting he was wrong. "But maybe once we figure out this blackmail issue, you ought to write down the numerous business benefits in the adoption 'pro' column. You know, under rescuing the poor boy from his evil parents and giving him a place he actually wants to go home to."

"The coffee trolley is on its way over," Edward said with an almost bored air. With everything else on their plates, this was the last thing he wanted to argue about today. Adopting Jasper didn't exactly go hand-in-hand with his penniless yet romantic life in Europe. As the thought crossed his mind, Edward scolded himself mightily for being the biggest dick in the world (and not in the good way). It was an awful, heartless thing to think, though that tiny, tiny piece of Edward couldn't help but agree with himself.

While Emmett fixed a cup of coffee, Edward took on the distraction of calling Bella again. She should have left work over an hour ago, but it rang three times until going through to voicemail. "_This is Bella Swan, and as it turns out, I'm going to live on the moon much longer than originally anticipated. A group of Martians has colonized here and declared me their leader. Leave a message at your own risk. I doubt I'll get back to you."_

A bemused frown creased Edward's face as he closed the call without leaving a message. Why would she take the time to change her voicemail without calling him back?

"Why so grim?"

Edward shook it off, concluding it was one of those newfangled apps. Rotating voicemails; it was kind of clever. "I've been trying to get in touch with Bella to set up our next date."

"You can't get a hold of Bella?"

"We had lunch yesterday. She's probably taking a nap after her shift or something…" Edward drifted off at the look on Emmett's face. His lips were puckered to the side, and for the first time in their relationship, it seemed like he was attempting to censor what was on his mind. Edward sighed when he realized why. "Not you too."

"Look, I'm not saying there's anything there, but we should at least consider the possibility—"

"No. There is _no_ possibility. How can you take Jasper's side on this? You haven't even met her, yet!

"It's the fact that I haven't met her that gives me the objective edge. She's someone who has recently come into your life that has a known familiarity with _BITE _and our services."

"A history she fessed up to on her own. If she was guilty, why would she do that?"

"The one thing we know about this blackmailer is that she or he doesn't know what the hell they are doing. Every move they make reeks of amateur."

"That isn't Bella. If she wanted to blackmail us, trust me, she'd do it well."

"All I'm saying is it couldn't hurt to have a look at her account, see if there's anything suspicious there."

"We can't do that," Edward said, massaging his forehead to ease the headache that had manifested in the past minute. "She made me promise I wouldn't." Again with that stupid look on Emmett's face. "It wasn't like that, Em. It was a privacy thing. You wouldn't want the person you were dating to snoop around your accounts, either."

"If you say so." Emmett didn't sound remotely convinced. "But she was at the restaurant the night that photo was taken. You have to admit, it's suspicious that it was snapped during the two minutes you weren't at the table with her. There's too much evidence stacked against her to ignore."

Edward stopped listening to all the reasons Bella could be the blackmailer and pulled out the photo in question. He stared down at it, transfixed. There was something in this photo, a clue he had missed at first. How had he not noticed it before?

"Emmett, shut up about Bella. What if there was a way we could narrow down who the blackmailer is?"

"That'd be a stride in the right direction, but I've had guys on this for weeks and nothing. What do you s'pose we could do that they couldn't?"

"You were right about one thing. Look at the picture; it was shot through a window. Whoever took this photo," Edward held up the image, "was _inside_ the restaurant, probably eating dinner."

It took Emmett mere seconds to catch on. His dimples flashed impishly. "Five-star restaurants keep meticulous records of their patrons."

"And I happen to know someone on the inside." It was time to put in a call to Edward's favorite wannabe-French waiter.

_**. . . **_

A bulky but fit man of about twenty-two with brownish-tan skin and a ponytail of thick, black hair opened his apartment door, wearing only a pair of _X-Men_ boxers and an "O" of surprise.

"Jacob Black?" Edward asked.

Identifying the blackmailer had been almost too easy. And it was _not_ Bella, damn it (the good kind of damn it). Within ten minutes of hanging up with Larry, Emmett had tracked down a recent address for this Jacob Black, and he and Edward were gone, prepared for the confrontation to end all confrontations.

The man in the doorway twisted his mouth into a pointed sneer and crossed his arms over his bare chest. "Edward Cullen. We meet at last. And if it isn't Emmett McCarty, the henchman."

Emmett's posture was identical to Jacob's, clearly trying to out-hulk his similarly-sized opponent. Jacob Black could have been intimidating if Emmett hadn't been there backing Edward's play… and if he didn't have a Wolverine print on his boxers.

_What now?_ Edward thought. _I need a killer opening line._

"The game is up," he said ruthlessly. _Cliché, but affective_. Or so he thought until…

Jacob Black's sneer broke into an outlandish smile, and then he actually giggled, _giggled_, into his forearm. "I'm sorry, but guys, that was the coolest. I always imagined you'd say something like that. And Emmett! With the flexing. Those extra curls you've been throwing into your workout are really paying off."

If it had been a taunt, Edward could have kept his steely composure, but Jacob Black was genuinely praising the pair of them with a voice so upbeat and affable, it was as if he was greeting two old friends. Edward felt his face slip into a dumbfounded pout. This was the mastermind behind _BITE_'s imminent downfall? It was almost embarrassing.

"Come in, come in." Jacob Black moved to the side and waved them in. "We have so much to go over. Tea, Edward? I bought that brand of sugar you like. Truvia, is it? I wasn't much for tea, but then I saw how much you drank it. Let me say, best endorsement ever. Lipton should consider making you a spokesperson. If they could create some high-caffeine tea, equivalent to a Red Bull, and had you to promote it… Phew! I tell you, BITE-hards would go crazy."

All of this was said in one breath, and Edward and Emmett weren't even through the door, yet. They shot each other weary glances. "Let me go first," Emmett offered valiantly. He stepped over the threshold in a guarded crouch, as if expecting Indiana Jones-type booby traps to spring on him at any second. So alert was he that a karate chop nearly took Edward's head off when his phone started buzzing.

"Easy," Edward warned, and even though they shouldn't have under the circumstances, his fingers twitched to answer the buzz. He was still expecting a call from Bella, after all. Upon discovering Jasper's name on the caller ID, his attention deflated faster than Emmett's bank account on a Tennessee Titan's game day.

Jasper had begged to go with them, but after accepting that this was a potentially dangerous house call, he grudgingly agreed to a compromise; Edward would wear a wire so Jasper could listen in, as long as it was from the safety of Alice's nook. Calling less than five minutes into the operation indicated he was not impressed with their performance so far. With none of Emmett's vigilance, Edward entered the apartment and tucked the phone back into his pocket.

"Was that little Jasper?" Jacob Black asked, standing at the sink and filling a kettle with water. "I have to say, I'm awfully fond of how you've taken him under your wing. You're a true humanitarian."

A spark of fury flared in Edward's chest and was stoked further when he spotted a stack of magazines and a pair of scissors on the kitchen table. "Then why are you blackmailing me?"

"You haven't been responding to any of our other tactics. We've been trying for months to get your attention; we've written emails, started online petitions, protested outside BITE headquarters, and nothing." After placing the kettle on the stove, he lit the gas flame. "I have to say, Edward, it wasn't very nice."

"And when you say we, you mean who?" Emmett asked.

"We who believe in the Spirit Warriors."

Emmett's eyebrows knitted in confusion. "We who believe in what?"

"Werewolves," Edward clarified warily. "He's a werewolf activist." There was never a greater pain in his side than those damn protestors. Why couldn't they accept that _BITE _was a vampire game? Vampires!

"And is Bella Swan also a werewolf activist?"

Edward shot Emmett a dirty look at the question, but didn't inhibit Jacob Black from answering. It was time to put the suspicions to rest for good.

A dreamy sigh rolled through Jacob Black's body. "I wish."

"Do you know her?" Edward asked.

"Ever since you started seeing her. She is a gorgeous woman. Don't 'cha think, Edward?"

"Obviously," Edward said through his teeth.

"She'd never consider the likes of me. She's a BITE-hard. I'm a Spirit Warrior." He clutched an oven cozy wistfully. "I have to hold to my pack first and foremost. That's why I knew I had to go through with the blackmail when I discovered Edward's little secret. Trust me. I'm well aware that I'm not innocent in all this. Blackmail is every bit as wrong as, say, deceit."

"Blackmail is a felony. It's much worse."

"But I also knew in my heart that this was the right move, because how else could we get our message out?" Jacob Black prattled on over Emmett, not out of rudeness but because he hadn't heard Emmett speak over the rustling of his tea packets. "I knew we just needed to get Edward's attention, and then he'd certainly listen to us…"

With Jacob Black's back turned toward them, Emmett was succumbing to his annoyance. He rolled up his sleeves and made a series of gestures that Edward somehow managed to decode: he was to distract Jacob Black, while Emmett crept up behind and hit him over the head with the teakettle. Edward shook his head. "We can take him," Emmett said under his breath.

"No violence," Edward whispered back sharply. His phone buzzed again from his pocket. He outright ignored it this time but was immediately aware Jacob Black wasn't talking anymore. Edward looked over to find the man staring at him in anticipation. "Er, what was that?"

"I asked how you found me. I've been so careful to cover my tracks, though I don't mind that it's ended this way in the least. Isn't this exciting?"

"Thrilling," Edward said. "A waiter provided us with the guest list from that evening you took the picture of me and Jasper. Your name is Jacob Black, and you've been signing you're blackmail notes with—"

"You've been 'Black' mailed." Jacob Black slapped his forehead. "Caught by my own vanity. Poetic justice, I'll say. I knew that wasn't the best idea, but I couldn't resist doing something that would prove to my brethren that—"

"Stop deflecting," Emmett sniped. "We are ready to negotiate." Edward's phone went crazy. He couldn't blame Jasper, considering how well this was not going. Jacob Black wasn't the spiteful, greedy, slimeball of a crook he'd pictured; he was nauseatingly cheerful and spoke in a crisp cadence that could only be described as… pleasant. And he still wasn't wearing a shirt. It was throwing Emmett and Edward off their game.

"Excellent." Jacob Black rubbed his hands together enthusiastically. "You know, if you would have told me a year ago that a part-time clerk job at SU would end up being the Spirit Warriors' big break, I would have smacked your tush and called you Binky."

"I hardly consider Edward and Jasper's carelessness a—"

Edward plunked a hand on Emmett's shoulder. "SU as in Seattle University?"

Jacob Black didn't notice the way Edward's knuckles were turning white with eager tension. "Of course. Where else could I have found out about your diploma? I needed cash, so I took a desk job. I thought it was the worst thing at first. Man was not meant to sit cooped up behind a desk, if you ask me. But now I see it for what it was—Lady Luck."

Edward's eyebrows shot up. The kettle screeched its boiling point. "And may I ask how you came across the… the 'information' that you have on me?"

"Sure, sure." Taking the kettle off the stove and pouring the boiling water into three mugs, Jacob Black said, "All the computer systems corroborate your story—I assume you paid someone off to change the official records—but I found the original paperwork that said you dropped out fifteen credits shy of a diploma."

The only sound in the room was the _buzz, buzz, buzz_ of Edward's phone as Emmett and Edward exchanged a look that encompassed a range of emotions: surprise, relief, and on Edward's part, a sliver of disenchantment as his European dreams poofed into thin air. To imagine this Wolverine-clad marshmallow of a meathead thought Edward's most dangerous secret was that he hadn't completed his Russian Literature degree! That was next to nothing.

"I don't believe you have that paperwork," Edward said slowly and deliberately. "Emmett?"

"Me neither." Emmett gave a small nod, indicating he knew the plan. "I don't s'pose you have this 'evidence' handy so we can take a look?"

"Sure, sure. Somewhere around here." Several untidy kitchen drawers rolled open before the coveted prize was located, scrunched in between a bag of batteries and a roll of packing tape. "Aha! Here it is. See for yourselves."

Emmett put on a pair of glasses, only worn to make him look more lawyer-like, and flipped through the small packet. "Yes, I'd recognize that signature anywhere. Edward, you've been a very bad boy, indeed." Funny, considering Emmett had done the necessary legwork to obtain Edward's false degree, and it had been his brilliant idea in the first place. "Would you happen to have a copy for my records?"

"I'm afraid not," Jacob Black said, scratching the back of his neck utterly oblivious. "I hadn't gotten around to that yet. You can't imagine the work that goes into blackmailing. I have to say, I don't—"

"Well, then." Emmett folded the paperwork, tucked it into his breast pocket, and stood. "I think that concludes our business for today."

A haze of confusion clouded Jacob Black's eyes before his mouth popped open and he spat out his first impolite sentiment of the day. "You can't do that."

"Try to take it from me," Emmett said, more as a request than a warning. When he wasn't attacked, Emmett sighed, disappointed. "Let's go, Edward."

"But you haven't had your tea! We should discuss this," Jacob Black said, flinging himself rather gracefully across the room to block their exit.

_Buzz. Buzz. Buzz._ Edward held his phone up, wanting nothing more than to escape. "I have to take this. Emmett, can you finish explaining the finer points of felonies to Mr. Black?" Emmett now looked like he wanted to smash the teakettle over Edward's head. "I'll give you the million I won from Jasper today."

"Have a good call," Emmett agreed merrily.

Once he was out in the hall, Edward answered the phone with, "Can you believe this fool?"

"_I couldn't hear anything the entire meeting._" A sticky misery coated Jasper's words. "_What happened_?"

"You first. Why couldn't you hear?"

"_It's Alice_." Three feeble coughs followed, the kind intended to prevent dripping tears. "_She— she died._"

_**. . .**_

As far as funerals for computers went, a candlelight memorial held at 3:38 a.m., the exact time a young Jasper had uncovered Alice all those years ago, wasn't entirely unreasonable. At least that's what Edward kept telling himself as he drove a shovel's spade into the ground over and over again. This was turning out to be one of the longest days in the CEO's short life. A sharp pain ballooned in his lower back, and despite the coolness of night, he was sweating through his t-shirt. Still, he carried on, thinking of all the things Alice had brought him over the years.

Jasper was holding together surprisingly well. Perhaps he'd been prepared for this day by the dozens of times he'd come close to losing her before, only to patch her up with a spare computer part and a dash of luck. Or maybe the shock of the situation hadn't set in yet, that this time there was nothing to be fixed… She was simply gone. Whatever the case, Jasper seemed composed, if not at ease, running around and carrying out his funeral plans.

He'd chosen a spot under Edward's cherry tree for Alice's final resting place. Since the usual Seattle rain had to work harder to pack the soil down under the tree's thick layer of protection, Edward's job wasn't _so_ very difficult. Jasper, however, was having a tougher go at it, ambling across the yard hauling a bulky, cube-like computer monitor.

"Is that going in with her?" Edward asked as Jasper struggled to set the heavy monitor beside Alice. Edward gave a silent thanks to humanity for the invention of the flat-screen.

"No. This was Alice's first monitor, and now it will be her tombstone." Adorably, Jasper had written with waterproof paint on its blacked-out screen:

_Alice Cullen_  
_2000 – 2013  
_ _"The Microsoft Sound"_

This was turning out to be an all right funeral for something they'd pulled together in an evening. "That's very thoughtful. I'm sure she would have loved it," Edward said. "What's the Microsoft Sound?"

"The sound she made every time I turned her off. It was her way of saying goodbye."

Somewhat unnerved by the calm in Jasper's voice, Edward asked, "Are you doing okay, Jasper?"

"She was thirteen years old. That's a 195 in computer years. It was her time."

"I know, but even when you're expecting—"

Jasper turned his back to Edward, bending down to sort through a row of plastic grocery bags. Instead of candles, he'd bought strands of white Christmas lights, claiming Alice would prefer something with electricity. "How are we doing on time?"

"We're okay." Edward pulled his cell phone from his back pocket and lit up the screen. Before looking at the time, he zeroed in on his missed calls. Nothing. No text messages, either. "It's 2:15. Plenty of time left, and I'm almost done with this grave."

A look of deep scrutiny met him when he glanced up. "Still hasn't called you back, eh?"

"How did you—? Never mind."

"I'm right, though, aren't I?"

Considerately, Edward said, "We don't have to talk about Bella, if you don't want to."

Jasper shrugged, returning back to unraveling Christmas lights. "We have to talk about something while we work."

"As long as you're sure that's what you want. Or I could tell you about the meeting with Jacob Black this afternoon," Edward said, ferreting for clues regarding Jasper's interest at a time like this.

Whatever it was, Jasper wasn't giving anything away. "I'd rather talk about Bella."

"I'm not certain what's going on, exactly," Edward said, burrowing back into the dirt. "But that's one of the things I like about her. She's unpredictable. She's been playing some kind of game all day, changing her voicemail every time I call. The last one was something like, '_You'll never believe who I met on the moon. Santa Claus. And apparently he needs an extra pair of hands at the North Pole, so I'm headed there to become an elf-slave after my moon adventure ends.' _Is that a game the kids at your school play, perchance?"

"Never heard of it."

"Oh, well. I'm sure she's just busy rewriting her thesis. It's still a little weird, though. You'd think if she had time to go through the trouble of changing her voicemail, she could at least send a quick text."

"Or maybe," Jasper said acerbically, "you can't take a hint."

"Sure, I can. What's the hint?"

Jasper rolled his eyes in Edward's direction. "Don't you get it? She's not calling you back."

She's_. Not. _Calling. Something about the way Jasper said those three words validated Edward's unease. It wasn't a guess. It wasn't an assumption. Jasper _knew_ Bella was not going to call him back.

"Why do you say that?" Edward asked.

"It's obvious. She got what she wanted when you read her paper, and now she's blowing you off." The explanation was delivered like a line that had been rehearsed too many times in a bathroom mirror. "You should have listened to me from the start. I knew she was trouble."

"You can do better than that."

"Do better than what?"

"Normally when you lie to my face, I can't tell."

Jasper's body went rigid before he dropped the lights and squared off with Edward. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"And again," Edward said. "What do you know?"

"Nothing."

"Stop lying."

"I didn't do anything!"

"My question wasn't what did you _do_, it was what did you know. But now I have to wonder, what did you do?"

Another farce to add to the growing pile, Jasper groaned. "I haven't done anything, and I don't know anything. Why won't you believe me?"

"Jasper," Edward said in a warning.

"I don't want to talk about this anymore. You're standing in the grave of my best friend. Show some respect."

"Don't use Alice to get out of this."

"What are you going to do? It's not like you can ground me from seeing her ever again." Edward didn't respond. He didn't budge. He did, however, glower with the intensity of a prowling lion. Eventually Jasper's gaze faltered. He couldn't look Edward in the eyes as he mumbled, "Before I came over this morning, I went to IHOP to talk to Bella."

It felt as if Edward's stomach had dropped out of his body. "What happened? What did you say?"

"We just talked."

"Details, please," Edward ordered, though every cell in his body was screaming he didn't want them.

A similar reluctance had seized Jasper. He scratched up and down his arm and shifted uncomfortably. "I told her I created _BITE_. I told her about… everything."

Prudence seemed to evade Edward. He staggered backwards, semi-stumbling against the side of the grave. He wanted to call Jasper a liar again, to believe he wouldn't do such a thing… but wasn't this the exact kind of thing Jasper, ever the puppet master, would pull? In hindsight, Edward didn't know how he hadn't seen it coming. "What did she say? Did she believe you?"

"Yes." Shame obscured the word. "She said it explained a lot."

"The voicemails…"

"She was pretty mad. She said you were the biggest liar she'd ever known."

So that was it. She wasn't playing a game. She wasn't kidding around. She hated Edward so much she was lying to him the way he'd lied to her. Edward realized he was trembling from head to toe. "How could— Why would—" His vocabulary was not obliging. "How could you do that?" he finally squelched out.

"She was screwthing up."

"What— what exactly was she screwing up?" Had Edward's voice ever gone that high before?

"Just… stuff."

Using the shovel for support, Edward regained his balance and twisted to face Jasper again. "No, no, no. You don't get away with stupid, empty non-answers. You _have_ to explain, because from where I'm standing, the only person 'screwthing' up is you."

Almost instantaneously, Jasper's usual self-righteousness flooded back. He stood straighter and boldly rolled his shoulders back. "It's you! Okay? She was screwing you up! You haven't been the same since you started fucking her."

"Don't you dare use language like that right now," Edward growled.

"Then don't you dare pretend like you haven't been acting like a total jerk-off."

"How? How exactly have I been anything less than a gentleman?"

"You've been ignoring… work."

A harsh, angry, unexpected laugh choked its way from Edward's throat. "This isn't about work. This is about _you_. For all of a month, the sole focus of my attention hasn't been you, and _you_ couldn't handle it."

"That's not true! Your work has been slipping. Everyone's noticed."

"_My_ work has been slipping? Do you have any idea the kind of jeopardy you've put the business in with this exploit?"

"You see? That's all you care about—money! You don't give a shit about me."

"Newsflash: I didn't do this for the money. I thought _BITE_ was the stupidest, most ludicrous idea I'd ever heard. I did this for you, because I thought you needed a friend. To this day, I still do it for you."

"Then why won't you adopt me?" Jasper shouted.

Edward wasn't prepared for that line of questioning, and it made him unbearably angrier. He was so sick of that word, and he was so sick of the pressure cooker he'd been stuffed inside for the last year regarding it. How could Jasper put something so heavy on Edward's shoulders?

"Well?" Jasper pushed. "I've been waiting a long time, and I think I deserve an answer now. It's not that complicated."

"What do you know about it?" Edward snapped. "This isn't some stupid kid's movie where your parents eagerly sign the adoption papers you copied out of a library book."

"Emmett says—"

"No matter what Emmett says, you're parents are not going to just give you up." Edward emphatically pounded his right fist into his left hand with every word as if that could drill it into Jasper's head. "And you want to know what happens if your parents take this to court? I lose. And I never see you again."

"That won't happen! We'll fight back. We have proof that you're the one who takes care of me, that you buy my clothes and school supplies and everything."

"The only thing that proves is that you're my charity case," Edward shot back, sounding exactly as harsh as he'd wanted.

Jasper flinched. "No. We can show them that you're my… my…."

"Your what? Your father? Jasper, I'm twenty-four years old. That's laughable to me. How loud do you think the courts will laugh?"

"Then we pay them," Jasper said, desperate now. "If we give them enough money, they'll leave me alone."

The grip on his shovel tightened. "Those people will never see a dime of your money."

"I can use it to do whatever I want, and I want to live with you!"

"Did you ever think that _I_ might not want to live with _you_? Jesus, Jasper. Especially after this stunt with Bella, why the hell would I want to be anywhere near you?" The rounded point of the shovel's plate plunged deeply into the soil. This time, Edward left it there. "Dig your own damn grave. Then do me a favor and _go home_."

Edward didn't look behind him as he stomped up to the house, ripping off his gloves and chucking them to ground in the process. _The nerve of that stupid kid_…

After slamming and locking the front door behind him, Edward didn't quite know what to do. He paced the hallway, trying to collect his scattered thoughts. That morning, as he'd glanced out over the bay from his deck, he'd had it all. Now his world was cracking apart at the seams. The glint of dangling keys caught his eye, and a plan began to take shape. He swiped the keys from the hook rack, heading towards the garage and his Volvo.

_Certainly she'll see reason_, Edward thought as he waited for the overhead garage door to open. The time of night be damned. He was driving to Bella's house to explain everything. Hell, she was probably up anyways, debating whether to turn him in to the authorities for fraud and child exploitation. But Edward knew that wasn't why he was desperate to get to her. Right now, he couldn't give two shits about _BITE_.

_She'll give you another chance. You just have to get out of this fucking garage._

As soon as he could clear the door, Edward was gone, zooming down the curved driveway with a one-tracked mind. _Bella. Bella. Bella_.

It was only when the Volvo's headlights illuminated a figure up ahead that Edward's foot reluctantly shifted to the brake. He sulked back against the headrest, hands still at ten and two on the steering wheel, and watched Jasper. He was not standing tall, digging, like Edward had expected. But rather, he was hunched over Alice, sobbing like Edward had never seen before. The cunning, manipulative, confident genius had been stripped away, leaving behind a twelve-year-old with a broken heart.

Edward hadn't been able to drive away from Jasper the first time they met, and he certainly couldn't do it now. With a resigned sigh, the car powered down, and Edward slipped out of the vehicle.

Even though physical affection had never been a part of their relationship, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to sit beside him and reach a comforting arm around the boy's shoulders. Jasper recoiled from Edward's touch. Had he ever had someone to console him before?

"It's okay," Edward said, massaging Jasper's shoulders to loosen the tension there and reassure him that it was, in fact, okay. "Come here."

Jasper all but collapsed into Edward's chest. "I'm s-sorry. I'm sorry," he repeated over and over again between heaves and sobs.

Edward placed another arm around Jasper and firmly held onto him. "It's okay," he whispered. "I'm sorry, too. I didn't mean it."

Something stirred in Edward as he cradled the crying child, something he'd never felt before: a fierce protectiveness. When a nightmare had woken Jasper, had his mother calmed him back to sleep? When a hard fall had scratched Jasper's knee, had his father wiped away the tears and patched up the wound? After all this time, it was only now hitting Edward that Jasper had never known the warmth and security of unconditional love.

"It's going to be okay. Let it all out," he found himself soothing, repeating the comforts his mother had cooed to him as a child.

How could he have witnessed the Whitlocks' abuse so many times and not understood the extent of its damage?

_Because he's Jasper. Nothing touches him_.

No. Everything touched him. And here on Edward's lap was the product of years of negligence, not from the Whitlocks but from Edward. Had not only hours ago Edward envisioned a Jasper-less life in Europe? Bile rose in Edward's throat as self-disgust surged. Hugging the broken boy that much tighter, Edward made a silent promise that things were going to change.

In due time, Jasper's tears were replaced by sniffles, and he sat up, embarrassed. After many assurances from Edward that he had nothing to be self-conscious about and a reminder of the time, the two set back to work on Alice's funeral. Only part of Edward wished he hadn't flung his gardening gloves away in his fit of rage. The sting in his hand from the shovel's wooden handle was a satisfying punishment for losing his temper.

At exactly 3:38 a.m., Jasper plugged in the web of Christmas lights he'd strung along the cherry tree, sparking a radiant glow above Alice's grave. Though Jasper was clearly exhausted from his breakdown, Edward gave him the time and latitude to perform the ceremony as he'd envisioned, before sending him off to bed with the promise that he'd take care of burying Alice. Jasper groggily agreed, perhaps only because he was half-asleep anyway.

"Wait, Jasper. Before you go, there's something I need to tell you."

"Hmm?"

"I, you know, um," Edward cleared the awkward from his throat. "I love you."

For the briefest of moments, Jasper's face lit up with pure joy. He immediately recovered with a cool, blasé, "Ditto. Goodnight, Edward."

They were going to have to work on that exchange going forward, but Edward gave a satisfied nod at their first attempt while he started shoveling dirt back into the ground.

If an onlooker were to describe the next two hours of Edward's life, they'd convey the unextraordinary scene of a man robotically filling up a fathomless grave. Perhaps an artist would capture the verve in Edward's eyes or the occasional smile that graced his grimy lips. But only Edward could attest to those two hours being the most meaningful of his life.

As Alice disappeared under each shovel full of dirt, Edward's resolution became clearer and clearer. He had all the reasons, all the excuses, for not seeking permanent custody of Jasper, and while they were still valid, none of them seemed good enough anymore.

So lost in thought was he that he barely noticed when Alice's pit was full. The only task left was to place the monitor at the head of her grave. He did so delicately, positioning it exactly as Jasper had instructed. A sudden wave of affection flooded him as Jasper's handwritten inscription caught his eye. He had read the tombstone earlier but not comprehended. Alice was a Cullen, not a Whitlock… just like Jasper.

"I'm going to be a father," Edward said quietly. And to his credit, a full six seconds passed before he snorted at the absurdity of it. "I know you thought that was funny too, Alice. Don't try to deny it. I heard you laugh."

Relaxing back onto his elbows, Edward mulled over the gravity of the decision he'd made at long last. Would he have to buy parenting books? Go to PTA meetings? Actually follow through with grounding Jasper? Give him the sex talk? Edward cringed. "You've already taught him everything he needs to know about sex, right?"

He paused for effect.

"Good," he said, standing up and dusting his hands on his pants. "To be honest, I don't even know where to begin with all this. I wish you were still around to tell us what to do. We didn't always get along, but you always had an answer for everything, Alice. Thanks."

A few footsteps later, Edward felt the urge to say one more thing. "And look, maybe I won't be a _father_, per se, but I'm going to take care of him. You can rest peacefully knowing that." He bent down and ran his hand over the top layer of soil. "I'll see you on the other side."

Once in his bedroom, Edward skipped the bed entirely. His body was sore and tired, but his mind was alive with epiphany, and there was no way he was sleeping through that. Instead, he walked out his French doors to watch the hues of orange and pink and yellow break through the dark sky, setting the bay's water on fire. Awed by its simple magnificence, Edward leaned over the porch railing and bathed in the warmth it provided.

Never had he felt so in tune with nature. This was _his_ sunrise, the manifestation of his new life. He'd been fighting it so long that to let the natural trajectory of his life take the steering wheel left him with a light and unburdened excitement. Only one question remained: could he have Jasper _and_ Bella?

The moon was fading as the sky brightened evermore. How curious that the moon lingered during the day, only to be outshone by the sun.

Edward pulled his phone out and hovered his thumb over Bella's name. What highly amusing moon-themed voicemail would await him if he pressed down? Or after having a day to reflect on it, would she pick up if he called? _I guess I'll never know_, Edward thought as he blocked and deleted her number.

He couldn't have them both. Recent events and Jasper's dislike of her aside, a wild card like Bella could get in the way of winning a custody battle. A pang of regret was all that was left of their budding romance. Edward found it had been an easy decision, because he hadn't loved Bella. He'd only been on the verge of loving her.

As for the possible repercussions of Jasper's latest misdeed, Bella was hotheaded, but she'd come to her senses once she thought it through. No one had understood Jasper and Edward's relationship quite like her; she'd understood it better than even Edward. And to ensure she'd come around, Edward would send Emmett to IHOP with his arsenal of explanations and assurances.

Thinking of Emmett, it was time to get the ball rolling. Edward located the lawyer's number and tapped send. A smile crept onto Edward's face, followed by a guttural laugh, as the time caught his eye: 7:00 a.m.

He was exactly where he had been twenty-four hours ago; standing on his porch with the breeze in his hair and a sense that everything was going to work itself out ripe in his gut.

_**.**_

_**.**_

_**.**_

**A/N:** I'm posting this chapter from a new computer I bought today, because my "Alice" died in the wee hours of this morning. Irony? Retribution? Omen?


	7. A Lesson in Arbitration

A Chapter, No Debate About It:_ A Lesson in Arbitration_

_**. . .**_

From start to finish, the adoption of Jasper Whitlock took five months and eight days. This seemed to Edward both an awfully short and tremendously lengthy epoch in his life, being four months shy of the time most men had to prepare for parenthood but five months of waiting too many. That time had also been a great agent of change. The proof was standing not ten yards away from Edward, engaging in a cheerful goodbye with his biological parents. Now a thirteen-year-old with a hatless head of dirty-blond curls and a sprinkling of pimples across his cheeks, Jasper was growing up.

He wasn't the only person in the Cullen household who had changed. Gone was the Edward of jeans and pocket thesauruses. In his stead was a composed man dressed to distinction in a black, tailored suit, his hair slicked to the side. The day Edward had committed to adopting Jasper, he'd committed to some growing up of his own. In his mind, that meant a stricter dietary and sleeping regiment, recycling, professional apparel, and a thousand other superficial things that, in actuality, made him no more an adult than anyone else his age.

The one person who hadn't changed a mite was Emmett, unless doubling his mischief as the "fun uncle" counted. There wasn't another person on Earth who could make Edward's life simultaneously perfect and a living nightmare.

"Hello, _Daddy_. Or is it going to be Mommy?" the prankster asked, recklessly leaping down several of the courtyard steps to reach his business partner. "Personally, I see you as more of a maternal presence."

"I don't think it's going to be either. Ultimately, it's up to Jasper, but my vote goes toward sticking with Edward. It's a classic, and I bet it'll make him look cool with the kids at school."

"Or maybe Jasper will do that thing where he compresses words and you'll end up being Dadward."

Though remaining cool, calm, and inexpressive in the face of surprise or revulsion was part of Edward's new adult directive, he couldn't control his growing scowl. "I'll bet you a million dollars you can't resist suggesting that to Jasper," Edward said, hoping to curb Emmett's gag from the off.

"You hate it that much?"

"Forget betting, I will _pay_ you a million to not suggest that to Jasper."

Emmett guffawed and clapped Edward on the shoulder. "In all seriousness, how does it feel to have the adoption finalized?"

"Mostly I feel relieved. All the excitement and novelty came when the adoption went through last month. To have it finalized and official… All that's left is relief that they can't take it back now." Edward nodded towards the Whitlocks, who were still happily chatting away with Jasper. They'd paid him more attention in the past months than they had his entire life, and Edward was hopeful they'd keep in contact to help him heal, albeit from far away and through email.

The adoption had been altogether easier and more amicable than Edward could have ever dreamt, thanks to Emmett's particular brand of genius and something he called "Inception-ing."

"What we have to do," Emmett had explained all those months ago, "is plant the seed of adoption in their head through subtle hints and blanketed innuendo. Then, when the time is right, _they_ ask _you_ to adopt Jasper."

Edward had been skeptical—nay, _incredulous_ at the absurdity of Emmett's proposal (even after watching the movie)—but there was no downside to at least giving it a try. Any other option they'd come up with would almost unquestionably result in a feud with the family and a possible legal battle. Two months after they started planting seeds, harvest came and Edward was a believer. By the time the Whitlocks had "won" a yearlong, worldwide, all-expenses-paid, booze cruise for two from the same anonymous company that had given them a new computer a few years back, they practically broke Edward's phone petitioning him to take custody of Jasper.

Another two months after that, the Whitlocks terminated their parental rights and Jasper came home with Edward—this time for keeps. Today, a final decree of adoption had been entered, meaning Jasper officially belonged to Edward and, more importantly, Edward to Jasper.

The clearing of Edward's throat warned Emmett of a sentimental tonal shift coming his way. "Emmett, I—"

"Don't you dare make this uncomfortable."

"But I wouldn't have—"

"I know."

"I need to thank—"

"No, you don't."

"Can I just say—"

"No."

"—one thing?"

Emmett loosened his tie and popped the top button on his shirt. "One thing. You get one thing."

"You're my lawyer and my business partner," Edward said, decidedly staring at Jasper, who looked like he was wrapping things up. "And you're also my best friend."

"That's hella sad." Emmett tucked his hands into his pant pockets and swayed away from Edward. "You're my BFF, too."

Edward's eyebrows shot up. "It's a good thing you're wearing sunglasses, because I believe you're getting choked up."

"You wanna fight?"

"Not a chance. You'd mess up my hair."

Jasper finished his goodbyes with a not entirely awkward hug from Mrs. Whitlock and a pat on the head from Mr. Whitlock, then sprinted up to Edward and Emmett. He was in the middle of a growth spurt, growing taller and skinnier everyday, so his dash wasn't devoid of gawkiness, but he managed up the stone steps okay with a gleeful, "Hey, Dadward!"

Edward stared at Jasper, grinding his teeth, before turning on Emmett. "I take back everything I just said, and you're fired."

Emmett was too busy laughing to take any offense. "Texted it to him when you weren't looking. Fun uncle strikes again!" He held up his hand to Jasper for a high five.

Once Jasper's high five had landed, Edward rolled his eyes and pulled the teen into a one-armed hug. "Hey, buddy. You're stuck with me now." With a kiss on top of his shaggy head, Edward released a horrified Jasper.

"Edward, be cool. We're in public," Jasper said, rubbing his hair back into place.

"Yeah, Edward, be cool. Props not sops."

"What does that even mean?"

"Resist the urge to be soppy by fist-bumping instead," Emmett said.

The sun was shining down on their moment. It had been a blissfully cloud-free, rainless morning, and Edward liked to think of it as the sun blessing the adoption. "Moving on," Edward said. "I believe a victory dinner is in order. Where would you like to eat, Jasper?"

"What restaurants can I choose from?"

"You have the pick of the town. Choose something five-star, if you'd like. Heck, I could even tolerate a visit to our friend Laurent on a day like this," Edward said. "Well, you can pick anywhere except—"

"IHOP! I pick IHOP! We haven't been there in months."

"No," Edward said firmly.

"Please," Jasper implored. "_S'il vous plaît_. Pretty please. Please with a cherry on top._ Pa_-lease."

"You're not ten anymore. That ploy has lost its charm."

"But it worked on you the first time we met… at IHOP. We have to go there. It's symbolic."

"Kid has a point," Emmett chimed. "This reluctance wouldn't have anything to do with a fella that rhymes with Bella?"

Edward bristled at the name, which he hadn't heard on anyone else's lips in a very long time. "You cannot taunt me into saying yes to IHOP."

"Is that a challenge?" Emmett asked. "Because I got ammunition, dude. You should have heard some of the things Bella said the last time we—"

"Ah, ah, ah." Edward covered his ears. "I don't want to hear any of that." Months ago when he had sent Emmett to parley with Bella regarding his and Jasper's secret, he had insisted that Emmett never divulge the contents of that conversation. Agreeable or angry, happy or sad, no good would come of hearing her final thoughts on the relationship that never was. If she'd wanted to give it another try with Edward, it wouldn't have mattered, because his sole focus from then on was Jasper. And Edward was too much of a coward to find out if she'd had any other reaction.

"Seriously, dude? It's been five months and you're still not man enough to face your ex?"

Jasper was silently remonstrating by pointing to himself, then hopping up and down on one foot. I hop. Funny.

"Stop that," Edward ordered, worried the teen's newfound clumsiness would kick in and he'd kill himself by hitting his head on the stone steps.

"Well?" Emmett asked. "Are you made of chicken, or are you made of man?"

"Okay, I'm only addressing this because what you said is entirely inaccurate, not because you questioned my manhood. She is not my ex. We never got to that point."

"Then why are you so hung up on her?"

"Because they vibed," Jasper chirped.

"Did they now? Edward, you never told me that, you sly dog."

"I'm not hung up on her! I've hardly thought about her since this whole thing started. This is the first time in months her name has even crossed my mind." Both Jasper and Emmett shot him unconvinced glances. "I'm serious. Jasper, consider this my first piece of fatherly wisdom. Not every relationship you form is going to turn out to be marriage and babies. That's how dating is supposed to work."

"Obviously I don't disagree with that line of thinking," Emmett said. "But if you believe what you're saying, then why the objection?"

"I—"

"And think about this. After you so adeptly delivered that accurate but quite cynical piece of advice, do you really want to teach young Jasper that he has to be afraid of frequenting businesses his exes, excuse me, the people he previously dated might visit or work at?"

Edward's eyes narrowed. "You are a talented lawyer."

"It is true," Emmett said, nodding sagely in agreement.

The drive over to IHOP was excruciating. A painful stomach knot seemed to be trying to twist itself free of Edward's body, and he couldn't figure the reason. What he had told Jasper and Emmett was true; he did not think about her often, if at all. When he'd blocked her number the morning of his epiphany, that was it for him, and to dwell on what could have been was pointless. He sat rigidly in the passenger seat of Emmett's Jeep and then in their old, usual booth at IHOP, focusing on how not terrifying this was going to be.

A pretty, young waitress with curly, ginger hair pulled back in a ponytail bounced over to their table. "Welcome to IHOP! Have you had a chance to look over our menu?"

Edward hardly had time for a moment of respite before Jasper started yammering. "Yes. I'd like your Original Buttermilk Pancakes. Actually, can you make that a double order? I'm famished. And can you bring another bottle of—"

"Is your name actually Renee, or is that old name tag machine still acting up?"

"What was that, hun?" the waitress asked, turning to Edward.

"I'm sorry," Edward said, double-checking the name tag to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks. Indeed, it was déjà vu. "Is your name Renee?"

"Yes," the waitress said slowly. "Renee Dash."

Edward wasn't sure if he was disappointed or relieved. And why would he feel either of those things in the first place? "Oh."

"Why the crazy, Edward?" Emmett asked.

"What he really wants to know is if Bella Swan still works here," Jasper blurted without tact or sympathy for Edward's plight.

"Who?"

"Bel-la Sw-an," Jasper enunciated.

"Sorry, sweets. I don't think I've met anyone by that name, and I've worked here near two months."

"Fine by me," Jasper said into his menu. "As I was saying, can you bring another bottle of ketchup? This one is almost empty. Oh, and to drink, I'd actually like two things…"

As Jasper and Emmett ordered, Edward tried to sort his feelings out on this newest development. So, Bella didn't work at IHOP anymore. Edward wondered when she had quit. According to Renee Dash, it had to have been at least two months ago, but perhaps it could have been longer… like five months ago. Edward shook his head at his narcissism. It was more likely Bella had quit IHOP after she graduated to pursue a career in writing, not as a means of avoiding awkward confrontations with a man she'd hardly dated.

"Edward? Edward!"

"Yes?"

"It's your turn to order."

"Right." Edward folded up his menu and handed it to Renee. "A stack of pancakes for me, as well, please." The college graduation theory made the most sense and fit the timeline. He knew for certain, because in a moment of weakness, Edward had checked the list of Seattle University 2013 summer graduates to ensure Bella's name was among them.

But no, he didn't think about her often. At. All.

"So… Edward, you've adopted Jasper," Emmett said, reaching to fill the lull that had fallen over their table. "Discuss."

Edward tilted his head, eyeing Jasper with a smirk. "Now that everything is official and there are no take-backs, I've decided it's time to start abusing my new power. A list of chores awaits him when he gets home. I'm going to turn him into a real Cinderella."

"Yeah… That's not going to happen," Jasper said.

"I believe I'm the authority figure in this relationship."

"And I believe you believe you're the authority figure in this relationship."

The three collapsed back into their familiar banter, and Edward didn't spare a further thought toward that other IHOP waitress.

Not one thought.

Really.

_**. . .**_

The rain was pouring down, as if atoning for the sunshine of the prior day, pounding portentously on the stained glass of Edward's office windows. He didn't mind the storm or the distraction it provided. As long as it rained, he could sit back, immersed in the effect of raindrops on stained-colored patterns. The window resembled a flower. Made up of nine individual panes, it had one circular eye and eight rounded, evenly distanced petals enclosing it. No matter how many times the petals were plucked, Edward landed on she loves me not.

With a sigh, Edward spun away from the window and instead stared at the empty desk he'd ordered for Jasper when the adoption papers had been filed. He shouldn't have bothered. Jasper was hardly ever in the office with him, being that this was the first time he could walk through the front doors, undisguised, and actually interact with the employees who made his vision a cyber-reality. Being surrounded by all things _BITE_ had done wonders for his imagination; he had been developing his best storylines in years.

The employees considered him a breath of fresh air, as well. They didn't know the extent of his involvement with _BITE_, but no pains had been taken to hide Jasper's visionary flair, either, since Edward was grooming him to take over the business one day, or so the gossip claimed. It wasn't rare that Edward would observe a group of adults circled around Jasper, listening intently to his ideas and laughing at the occasional joke. Perhaps they were brownnosing, but something about the way they hung on his every word led Edward to believe they were genuinely fascinated.

Edward was elated Jasper blended so splendidly with the workers, but the empty desk made the office feel lonely, especially today. Since their trip to IHOP, Edward hadn't been able to shake off the morose bubble that seemed to expand each time he pretended it had nothing to do with Bella.

At the thought of her name, his hand twitched toward his desk drawer, then yanked back to his lap guiltily. What was he doing? That drawer hadn't been opened in five months—three weeks, if Edward stopped lying to himself—and he'd sworn that would be the last time. Yet, the drawer shook and called to him like the floorboards in _The Tell-Tale Heart_. Casting one last glance at Jasper's empty desk to double-check that he was indeed alone, Edward slid open the drawer and removed the false bottom. Hidden in there were two items: a newspaper article and a drawing.

Two faint finger-trails had become visible in the sand from months of tracing and retracing the drawing's texture, and a few grains broke free of the glue as Edward did it now. Occasionally, That Place would crop up in his dreams. He was never able to remember much about it the next morning, except that Bella wasn't there with him.

Edward flicked the drawing to the side and slumped over his desk with his head on his forearms, an uncomfortable position given the inflexible measurements of his suit. He stayed that way, flipping through his memories like a stack of pictures: Bella at IHOP wearing her customer service best, Bella at the interview in all her rage and fury, Bella on their first date with that engaging smile. It had been a long time since Edward permitted himself to think of Bella so much, considering he'd gotten over her almost the second he decided to adopt Jasper.

Sure.

_She did make quite an impression though, didn't she?_ Edward admitted.

_Dude, get over it already, _a thought that sounded eerily like Emmett responded. _It was only six dates._

_It _was_ only six dates. There was so much I didn't get to know about her before we…_

Edward sat up as everything came into focus. Technically, neither Edward nor Bella had formally ended their courtship. They'd simply stopped talking to each other.

All these months, what Edward had needed was closure.

How could he get it? Now that he'd figured out the diagnosis, he was desperate to fill the prescription, but all lines of communication with Bella had been shut down long ago, and he wouldn't re-open them even if he could. Maybe if he asked Emmett about their last conversation… A wave of dread flooded his body that had little to do with the snarky thought Emmett-voice responded with. Nope, that wasn't an option either.

And then it hit him.

"Carmen?" Edward pressed the intercom button to his assistant's desk. "Carmen, can you come in here? I could use your help."

"_I'll be there in a jiffy, Mr. Cullen._" He'd just managed to shove the drawing and newspaper back into their drawer when Carmen poked her head through his door. "What can I do for you?"

"If I wanted to look someone up in the _BITE_ database, how would I go about doing that?"

"It's easy as long as you have your access code," Carmen said, walking the distance between the door and the desk.

Edward surrendered his chair to her as per their usual routine. "Where do I get that at?"

"They change it every three hours to prevent hacking. It should be sent to your phone via text."

"So that's what those alerts are," Edward said, fiddling with his phone until the messages with the complicated letter and number sequences came up. "And all these years, I've thought it was SPAM."

Carmen smiled fondly and sat down in Edward's seat. "You geniuses are all the same. You can do the most complex programming in the world, but you can't walk in a straight line. Who would you like to look up? I'll need a name and either an email address or the region he or she lives in."

"Search for Isabella Swan in either Forks or Seattle, Washington." There was something about never seeing her again that made Edward feel quite at liberty to break his promise and invade Bella's privacy. This would satiate his curiosity on all the things he'd never gotten to find out in person and give him the resolution he craved. And the best part was she'd never know.

"Here you go," Carmen said, passing the computer back to him.

A slight tremble seized Edward's hand as he took control of the mouse. On the screen was a list of several files pertaining to Isabella Swan of Seattle, Washington. He clicked on the first one and scrolled through pages of number-filled Excel worksheets. "What is this?" he asked, his excitement deflating somewhat. He had been hoping for a picture of her character.

"Let me see. Those are payroll records. The BITE, Inc. database encompasses most of the departments in BITE, as well as the users."

"Hmm." Edward closed out of that file and opened another. It was a copy of a paycheck, and Bella's name was on the top line. "Why would BITE, Inc. be compensating Bella Swan?"

"Probably because she works here."

"She _works_ here?" Edward screeched.

"Well, I don't know," Carmen said gently. "I don't meet a lot of the other employees. But here, we can check." With a few taps on the keyboard, Carmen had pulled up another screen. "Ah, see here. New hire paperwork. It looks like it was processed in late June."

"Three months ago!"

"Mr. Cullen, are you all right?"

Something very close to hyperventilation was stirring in Edward. "Excuse me," he gasped, sweeping around his desk and making a break for the door.

Every step down the hallway was faster than the last, as was each beat of his heart. What the fuck was going on? He reached the second floor peak and almost flung himself over the railing in pure heedlessness as, frantically, he searched the faces of everyone he could see in the Bitcave. Why did BITE, Inc. have to hire so many fucking employees? He reached up to his hair to release some of the mounting tension with a good, old-fashioned tug, but found it gelled to his head. Fucking hair product!

"Listen up!" he yelled to the Bitcave with every ounce of agitation he felt. Sheer will wasn't enough to carry his voice across a room with hundreds of busy workers or even halfway across the room. He did, however, catch the attention of a gaggle of interns taking a coffee break right below the peak. It would have to do. "Do any of you know who Bella Swan is?"

The interns looked among themselves in consternation before one brave candidate stepped forward. "Bella Swan is BITE's senior story editor, sir," he answered confidently, as if this was a pop quiz.

"Where does she work?"

"Uh… at BITE, sir."

"I know that," Edward said, trying to contain his exasperation with the only helpful person in the room. "I'm talking location. Does she work in this building?"

"Ooooh. Yes, sir. I believe her office is one of those." The boy pointed to a cluster of offices on the second floor directly across from Edward. He took off without another word, leaving the intern to wonder if he'd passed the CEO's impromptu assessment.

In outright panic mode now, Edward flung open the first door he encountered in the line of offices. Startled, the head of the accounting department barely had time to say hello before Edward slammed the door and moved onto the next. Down the row he went, without concern or acknowledgment to the residents inside, and with every door, Edward grew increasingly chaotic, to the point where he could barely recall what he was looking for. In fact, the twelfth office he tried might not have registered on his radar at all if it wasn't for a particular head of dirty-blond curls.

When Jasper turned around to see who was at the door, he was mid-laugh, sitting cross-legged on top of a desk… a desk that Bella Swan, with her unchanged beauty, was sitting behind. Edward blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things, because not only was she sitting in an office at BITE headquarters, it looked like Jasper was enjoying her company. Or he had been until the smiles slipped from both their faces.

Silence.

Not a question. Not an excuse. Not a word.

Jasper recovered first. He smiled, not his signature cocky grin, but the remorseful grin of a kid whose hand was caught in the cookie jar. "Edward, I know what this looks like," he said in a squeak. "And I know you might be angry. But let's focus on the positive. I've found an excellent writing partner."

Nope. Edward wasn't ready for words yet. He stepped back and closed the door without another glance at the duo, making his way back to his office in a haze, unaware of the multiple sets of eyes peering out of door cracks and the unprecedented quiet that had settled in the Bitcave. Carmen inquired about his well-being, but all he could manage was a shake of his head and the dramatic double parting of his office doors.

_What. The. _"FUCK!" It was a feral, wretched cry, the likes of which had never come out of Edward before. What was Jasper trying to do to him? Send him to an early grave? And Bella. How dare she? How _dare_ she trespass in such an insolent and unethical manner? To not even ask Edward if he wanted her here… It was insulting.

Edward stopped short in his outrage. It'd been a few months, but that didn't sound like the Bella he'd known at all. It did, however, reek of the puppet-master. He thought back to the moment Bella had realized he was standing in her office. Had she seemed surprised? Upset? Guilty? He couldn't recall, his own shock clouding the moment.

Clamoring over to Jasper's desk, Edward pulled out and emptied every drawer until he found what he was looking for: a box of transponders, specifically one with the label _Bella Swan's Office_. He switched the little knob on top of the device to turn it on and collapsed back in Jasper's chair to listen.

"—_his problem? He's been ignoring me for months, and then he storms in and acts like I'm the one with the problem. I don't think so."_

"_I know, Bella, but—"_

"_No, I'm done with this bullshizz. You don't know what it's like coming in day after day when your boss, or whatever he is, treats you like you're below dirt, not even worth a side-glance."_

"_There's probably an explanation." _At Jasper's probably, Edward jerked back. Probably an explanation? _Probably_?

"_I can appreciate your loyalty, but please don't defend him. He doesn't deserve it. When you hand in my resignation, you can tell him I said to pull that stick out of his ass._"

A tingle ran up and down Edward's spine as Bella talked about his ass, and not the kind one would expect when someone wanted to pull a stick out of it. It was as Edward had thought. He had adopted a double-crossing, life-sucking sociopath, but it could be worse. While there were still plenty of questions, to Edward's relief, it didn't sound like Bella could answer any of them.

"_Come on, Bella. You can't quit. You love your job, and you're so good at it. Even Edward says so."_

"When have I ever?" Edward angrily asked the transponder.

"_He says that the storylines we're coming up with are the most inspired in years."_

"But he doesn't know Bella came up with those storylines!" Edward said.

"_If Edward likes my work, he should tell me to my face."_

"_What about the money? It's good, right?"_

"_It's not worth being miserable. It's not worth… this."_

"_You're miserable? But don't we have fun?" _There was a hushed yearning in Jasper's inquiry, one Edward recognized from all those times he'd asked to be adopted. What had happened in the past five months that it was now directed toward Bella?

"_Jasper, you know I love working with you,"_ Bella said tenderly. _"This is my dream job, but it's complicated. I really thought Edward and I had something before it went sour, and to have it brutally shoved in my face every single day… Well, let's just say I didn't know Edward could be so cruel. I can't work for a man like that."_

Edward shot up, ready to march back to that office to defend himself and give Jasper a good spanking.

"_I have to tell you something about Edward, and you're not going to like it."_

The spanking could wait. Edward sat back down and pulled the chair as close to the transponder as possible.

"_If it's that_ _Edward has been replaced with a brainless, soulless, suit-wearing robot, I already knew that, thank you."_

"_It's a different theory, though I like that one much better." _Jasper took his time with a long hesitation. _"Edward doesn't know you've been working here. Or at least, he didn't until a few minutes ago."_

A sharp bark of laughter rang from her office through Edward's. "_Don't be ridiculous. That's impossible. He practically begged me to come here."_ There was a large gasp, followed by, _"No, no, no, no, no. Oh, Jasper, you didn't."_ Bella's voice had gone from one kind of outrage to another.

"_I did_," Jasper said, and he at least had the decency to sound repentant. "_I'm so, so, so, so, so sorry, but it was the only way to get you to come work here._"

"_But… but… That's not possible. There were things in that email you couldn't have possibly known."_

Email? After picking up the transponder, Edward scrambled over to his computer. If it was sent from his account, there had to be a way to locate that email.

"_I'm sorry."_

"_But I saw his signature on the paperwork."_

"_Forged. I'm sorry."_

"_But Emmett… Certainly he wouldn't…"_

"_He was the forger. I'm sorry."_

Emmett was in on this, too? The pop of a knuckle cracked the air as Edward clutched the computer mouse in ire. McCarty was a dead man.

"_I— I have to go talk to Edward, to set this all straight. What he must think of me… I can't imagine."_

"_No, that's not a good idea."_ A chair scraped the floor, followed by a thud. It sounded like Jasper had blocked her in. _"Trust me on this one."_

"_What about this situation do you think warrants trust? Did you see the look on his face? He hates me."_

"_Edward? No, he practically loves you. He was surprised is all. Uh… are you okay? You aren't going to cry, are you?"_

"_No, I'm not crying," _Bella said irritably._ "But you have no idea… You don't know what it's been like. I thought he… I thought he didn't… Never mind."_

"_I feel like it's my fault. Have I mentioned I'm sorry?" _

"_It _is_ your fault."_

"_You don't understand the circumstances."_

"_There are _circumstances_? You didn't tell me that before! Now everything's all better, and we can have ice cream and be merry." _

"_I'm serious."_

"_No, I'm being serious. You can't play with people's lives like this. It's wrong."_

"You go, girl," Edward mumbled, listening as he scrolled through his sent email.

"_I wasn't playing with your life, I swear. I didn't expect everything to go down this way. It just kind of played out. At first, I didn't even want you to work for us. Ask Edward."_

"_I would go ask him, if you'd kindly remove yourself from the door."_

"_Wait, let me just explain one thing first." _She didn't speak her consent, but Edward assumed she'd granted it because Jasper said, _"This wasn't about you and Edward. Not really, at least. That day everything happened, after I got back from talking to you, I went over to Edward's house. I found the blackmail in Edward's briefcase on his bed and freaked out, because I'd just blabbed everything to you and I realized you were the blackmailer—"_

"_I would never—"_

"_I know! I mean, I know that now. But I was stupid back then. Edward wasn't, though. He made me a deal that if you were the blackmailer, he'd break up with you."_

Bella made an offended little noise.

"_But he knew you weren't, so it didn't matter,"_ Jasper insisted. _"And he made me promise that if you weren't the blackmailer, I had to make an effort to get along with you. Us Cullens never go back on a deal. So you see, even though you and Edward weren't dating anymore, I had to make an effort to get to know you."_

"_And that's why you kept showing up at IHOP, even though Edward didn't."_

"_Exactly. I never expected to like you so much. You know, in a not gross, you're old and dated Edward sort of way."_

Was that a faint chuckle from Bella? Edward had halted searching through his email around Jasper's line about not going back on a deal. That boy was good at smoothing things over. Too good. Edward would have to be on point when his turn with Jasper came.

"_It got to where our IHOP meetings were the best part of my day, because ya know, Alice was gone, and Edward got all weird after he decided to adopt me."_

"_What do you mean he got weird?"_ Sympathy. Her voice was thick with it, and Edward knew she was a goner, putty in Jasper's hands. She'd lasted over ten minutes, which wasn't a bad run for an amateur.

"_You're not the only one who thinks he's got a stick up his ass." _Edward's jaw went slack. That ungrateful, totally grounded jerk! _"He thinks he had to change that way to adopt me. I don't know where he got that—"_

Edward switched off the transponder and sat back stiffly in his seat. He had no interest in listening to more insults on his character and Bella's acquiescence, so instead, he began to form a picture of what had been going on under his nose all these months with the clues he'd collected. The one thing he knew for sure was that Jasper had started visiting Bella on his own and, from the sound of it, quite often. After that, he was working under two theories.

Theory One: Jasper claimed that he'd pursued a friendship, because he was holding up his end of a deal. If that was true, Edward could imagine Jasper and Bella falling into easy conversation over the game they both loved, especially with Jasper's dry spell and Bella's knack for intriguing storylines, which could have lead to an unexpected job offer.

Theory Two: Emmett had come up with this ploy to ensure Bella's silence, appealing to her soft spot for Jasper. He maneuvered Bella into the company to get her to sign the routine non-disclosure agreement all employees had to sign, therefore covering their butts in the legal department.

Bonus Theory: Everyone sucked, and none of it mattered anyway.

Whatever the explanation, Jasper had spent enough time with Bella that when "Edward" had sent an email asking her to join the team, she'd accepted. That email was not to be found in Edward's outbox. He'd searched twice, but either Jasper had deleted it to cover his trail or sent it from another account entirely. _Pity_, Edward thought. _It must have been some email to convince Bella to work in this house of lies._

The one thing Edward was not ruminating on was what this meant for him and Bella. That morning, and every morning for five months and nine days, he'd woken up believing, without a shadow of a doubt, he'd never see her again. And now, here she was, not only in the same building as him but under his employ. He'd deal with Jasper first and then tackle that particular kettle of fish.

A dim knock interrupted Edward's non-thoughts on Bella. The door creaked open, and Jasper's nose peeked in, then edged its way into the room with the rest of his body. Everything from the way he observed his trashed desk down to each uneasy squirm was methodical. "Before you start yelling," he said, standing about three feet in front of Edward's desk, "I need you to know that we were planning on telling you by the end of the week. That's why we took you to IHOP yesterday. We thought it'd help cushion the blow if you were already thinking about her."

Edward didn't move, except to twist his cufflink around and around, as he considered Jasper's approach. Even as an innocent, Jasper had been conniving, an unfortunate byproduct of his upbringing, but it was only in the last year or so that he'd fine-tuned his craft to a chilling degree. With grains of truth, he could spin lies as smooth as the Devil's horns. Edward didn't deny his part, knowing it was he who had created an environment where deceit was part of _BITE_'s survival.

"It didn't occur to you to tell me sooner?" Edward asked calmly, deciding to let Jasper's gambit play out.

"Of course it did. And we tried. Believe me. But every time we said Bella's name, you'd clam up and tell us you didn't want to hear it."

"Doesn't seem that hard to me. Over breakfast one morning or perhaps when you're walking out the door, you say, 'Heads up, Edward. Bella's working at BITE, Inc. See ya later.' I guarantee I would have wanted to know more."

"We were worried about you because of how stressed you were with the adoption and everything, so we decided to wait until after it was finalized."

"But that wasn't the only reason, was it? Oh, don't play stupid. You and Emmett like your mischief. Fess up."

Rocking back and forth on his feet, Jasper admitted, "There was maybe a bet to see how long it'd take for you to figure it out."

"Who won?"

"You did." Jasper couldn't help a smirk. "Neither of us could have guessed in a million years you were preoccupied to the point of three months. And I wasn't even trying to keep you apart. This one time, and I swear I'm not making this up, you walked right past her. You were like a foot apart from each other and she was looking at you, and you just kept walking."

"That did not happen."

"I witnessed it with my own eyes."

Edward remembered what Bella had said about not being worth a side-glance and cringed. His heart cracked for her, even if the blame wasn't his to stomach. "Let's put aside the fact that you and Emmett were having a laugh at my expense, because that I can and do handle on a daily basis. What really qualifies you as the world's biggest jerks is the fact that you didn't show an ounce of respect for mine or Bella's feelings on the matter."

"You don't understand the circumstances."

"Yes, I do." Edward held up the transponder. "Cullen men never back out of a deal, right? How that translates to hiring Bella behind my back, I can't quite figure."

Jasper eyed the transponder warily. "You heard the whole thing, then?"

"I cut out around, 'You're not the only one who thinks Edward has a stick up his ass.'"

"I'm sorry I said that, but—"

"I don't want to hear it. You were explaining the circumstances behind your backstabbing treachery. Please continue."

"Right." Jasper shifted his weight and swung his arms behind his back. "What I told Bella was true, just not the whole truth. I went to IHOP on my own after the whole thing went down, because I felt bad about everything I'd done, especially because you had to give something up when you decided to adopt me. Bella wasn't exactly happy to see me at first, but I kept showing up trying to get her to talk to me. There was this one time when Bella was working the night shift and there wasn't anyone else there besides me, so Bella brought over a deck of cards and said we could play, as long as we didn't talk about you."

"When was this?"

"I started going like a week after Emmett talked to Bella."

Edward dipped his head somberly, realizing more than simple guilt had lead Jasper back to IHOP. This had happened during a time when Jasper was spending nights at his biological parents' house as part of Emmett's strategy to plant those adoption seeds. Of course Jasper would fall back into old habits, haunting his childhood refuge.

"Anyway, I kept going back and eventually, Bella started asking me questions about how I came up with _BITE_. That morphed into us discussing the game and talking about all the storylines. She's _really_ good at coming up with stuff. She told me about some of her old role-plays and things she did with her coven, and they were so good. Honestly, they were as good as most of the stuff I'd come up with. That's when I told Emmett I'd been meeting with her in secret."

Edward reconsidered his vow to murder Emmett upon hearing he hadn't been involved from the off. "How long had you been talking to Bella when you went to Emmett?"

"I don't know. Maybe a month or two or somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure, but Emmett made this joke about how it'd be awesome if we could get her on the BITE staff, because we were taking it on cookies and unicorns that she wouldn't go to the press or police. I latched onto the idea, because I'd been coming up with my best stuff since talking with her, and the rest is history."

Jasper's story seemed to be a mix of Theories One and Two, which said to Edward that he knew him well enough to understand his actions after the fact, but not enough to stop them ahead of time. He made a mental note to work on that.

"What did the email say?" Edward asked.

"Which email?"

"The one you sent Bella on my behalf to convince her to come work with us."

"Oh, yeah. That email. It was a long one since, ya know, you can get wordy, but it basically said that I had talked you in to bringing her on board as my writing partner if she'd like a job after college."

"That can't be all. Bella said that there were things in that email you couldn't have known. That's what I'm particularly interested in."

"Funny, seeing as that's kind of the part I'm not interested in telling you." Jasper let out a small, hopeful laugh, which Edward beat down with his lion's glare. "Okay, it said that you'd kept the picture she made, the one with us at the beach and the campfire, and even though you knew That Place was out of reach right now, you still liked to pull it out when no one was looking and imagine the three of us were there. I made it very poetical."

Edward was on his feet in an instant. "Where is it?"

"Where's what? The email?"

"No, the camera, smart guy."

"What camera?"

"The one you've been using to spy on me."

"I don't spy on you anymore! You said I'd be grounded for life if you caught me bugging your office again."

"Then how did you know about the picture?" Edward pushed. "I never showed it to you."

"I found it the old-fashioned way, snooping through your desk. You never said that was illegal."

"Then how did you know that I—" Edward cut himself short of admitting out loud what he did with that picture.

"Whoa, wait a minute. Do you actually do that? 'Cause I was just trying to write something that would make her all gooey. Oh, my God. You do do it!"

"Enough," Edward swiped the desk with his hand. "I'm not going to let you make me feel bad about… anything."

"Are you kiddin' me? This is great!" Jasper was practically hopping with excitement. "This means that not all is lost. You can be fun again! _Merci, mon Dieu!_"

It took Edward more than a second to formulate a response, and even then, it was one of stunned resentment. "I can be fun _again_? As in, I'm not fun now?"

"Um, yah," Jasper said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I know I used to call you a fun-sucker, but that was before meeting this new version of Edward Cullen. Stick up the ass was putting it lightly. I mean, look at you!"

"There's nothing wrong with the way I look," Edward said, though he felt the sudden urge to slacken his tie.

"The stuffy suit? The icky hair gel? The vitamins? I mean, come on. Will the real Ed Cullen please stand up?"

"In case it's somehow escaped your attention, I did this for you. You wanted a parent. You got one. A responsible, trustworthy, capable parent."

"Wearing a suit doesn't make you any of those things, so don't even try and turn this around on me." Jasper made a move towards Edward's side of the desk, yanked open the drawer, pulled out the newspaper that had clumsily been stuffed in there earlier, and slammed it into Edward's hands. "This was the Edward I asked to be my parent."

Edward looked down at the newspaper in his hands and could just make out the headline, _CEO of BITE, Inc. Not Your Average Cold-Blooded Capitalist_. When he looked up, he was smiling not unlike a madman. "Wow. That was a solid performance right there. Did you plan that move with the newspaper ahead of time, or was it a spur of the moment decision?"

"I… I… I… What?"

"Doesn't matter. But credit has to be given where credit is due. You _are_ a good, little manipulator. I thought it the first time we met, but it's practically art now. What were you going to do next? Make your escape by storming out of this office in righteous indignation after what you—_you—_pulled on me?"

"I was not." The denial didn't live up to the rest of his routine. It was at best a three out of ten.

"Yes, you were." Edward's smile was only getting bigger. "Sit down. It's Father's turn to speak now."

There was a spring in Edward's step as he paced in front of the wriggling—authentically, this time—Jasper. Having the upper hand gave him a strange high, exactly like he'd always imagined. He stopped abruptly and turned to face his kid, knowing the words would come as naturally as if he'd been Jasper's caregiver since birth.

"Jasper, you are a very intelligent, very clever, very creative boy. But of course, you already know that."

"That's nice to he—"

"I need you to zip your lips and give me the key," Edward said in a voice so pleasant it was menacing. He held out his hand, and though Jasper was appalled at being treated like a three-year-old, he did as Edward requested. "Thank you. Now where was I? Smart, creative, and annoying. Very annoying. Why? Because you think you're better than every other person on this darn planet."

"I do not!"

"Ah, ah, ah." Edward dangled the invisible key in front of Jasper's nose. "You _do_ think you're better than everyone else, and even if you're grossly misguided, I can see why. There aren't many adults, much less children, who could take the situation you were born into and make of it what you did. It is truly, in a word, extraordinary. But let's not forget you had help. You _needed_ help. In fact, you literally begged on your knees for my help. You're not a god, Jasper. You're just lucky I'm so gullible."

Jasper's fingers were clenched to the chair on either side of him, and he was practically frothing at the mouth to argue. Edward pressed on.

"I love you, Jasper, and our relationship is about to change because of it. I am now responsible for your upbringing, and that means ensuring you make it to eighteen physically and mentally healthy. You didn't have real parents growing up, but when you asked me to adopt you, you were asking me to be a real parent whether you meant to or not. Our relationship is not going to be one giant slumber party. I am not your friend anymore. I am not even your brother. I am your father," Edward paused on the word. "I _am_ your father, even though it's still weird for us to say. I imagine that will come with time. I am also your protector, your guiding hand, your disciplinarian, your whatever-you-need-me-to-be, not be mistaken with whatever-you-_want_-me-to-be.

"With all that said, this superiority complex of yours is getting the boot starting now." Edward walked over to Jasper's desk, picked up the box of transponders, and dropped it in the trash. "There will be no more eavesdropping, no more stalking, no more meddling in other people's lives because you think you know better. You know a lot, Jasper, but shockingly, at the ripe age of thirteen, you don't know everything."

"I—"

"Further, you will not cuss. You will not watch movies that are inappropriate for your age. You will not look porn up on the Internet. You will not sneak out of the house. I will know where you are at all times and whom you are with. I'm sure there are a thousand more of these parentisms we need to go over, but do you get the gist? Nod or shake your head."

Horror-struck but coherent, Jasper managed a slight nod.

"Excellent. One more thing. You start high school next month, and while you are in school, you can earn an allowance by working for _BITE_ up to, but no more than, ten hours a week."

Jasper exploded out of his seat. "That's not fair! I was only trying to help!"

"Sit back down."

"No."

"Sit. Back. Down."

Edward held Jasper's defiant glare until the boy was sitting again, with his arms crossed and a scowl set into his jaw. "You thought you were helping," Edward said. "But even if your intentions were one hundred percent pure, which they weren't, what you did was still hurtful."

Jasper turned away, and in his profile, Edward saw his scowl break into a chin wobble. "You hate me now."

"Never," Edward said. "You're a thirteen-year-old genius. Pain-in-the-Ass might as well be your middle name. To an extent, that's part of your charm, but it's also going to get you in a lot of trouble until you learn to tone it down. I'm positive this is only the first of many disciplinary hearings we'll be having over the next five years. But the thing I'm starting to learn about being a parent is that I'll love you no matter how much you piss me off."

Jasper gave a hard nod but still didn't look at Edward. _Teenagers_, Edward thought. _Stubborn even in the sentimental moments_. "You're going to be all right," he couldn't help but say.

"Can we negotiate?" Jasper asked, gauging Edward's susceptibility out of the corner of his eye. "This is my company. It's unfair to take it away from me."

Edward crouched down on his knee so he was eye-to-eye with Jasper. "It's the fairest thing there is. Jasper, you're thirteen going on fifty. You will enjoy your youth, if you have to kill me trying."

"This place will burn to the ground without me."

"It won't. I've got this." Edward gave Jasper's shoulder a squeeze and stood. "Now, you're going to stay in this office and handwrite Bella another letter, this time from yourself, apologizing for what you put her through and listing all the reasons you were wrong. Make it thorough, or you'll be re-writing it until I'm satisfied."

"Where're you going?" Jasper asked, watching Edward pick up the trashcan full of transponders and head towards the door.

"I have to go talk to Bella about her new promotion," Edward said. "Carmen will be watching to make sure you don't leave this office."

"What if I have to go to the bathroom?"

"She'll go in with you." Jasper shot him a disgusted grimace. "I'm kidding. I would never do that to poor Carmen."

"Keep walking and know that you walk alone."

Edward paused at the door. "Hey, Jasper. I do love you," he said sincerely.

"Love you, too, _Dadward_."

To Jasper's displeasure, Edward laughed. "It has a certain ring to it. I don't know why I ever thought differently, _Ja-son_."

_**. . .**_

"Edward?"

A painful-sounding bang, followed by a whimper, answered the call of his name.

"What the hell are you doing under my desk?" Bella asked.

Yep. The universe hated Edward Cullen that much.


	8. A Lesson in Shutting Up

Insert Offhand Witticism About How This is a Chapter:_ A Lesson in Shutting Up_

_**. . .**_

Bella's office might as well have contained an atomic bomb for all the caution Edward took in approaching it. The high he'd experienced whilst lecturing Jasper had progressively transformed into a paralyzing fear, the paralysis part kicking in about six inches outside her open door. He hovered there, convincing his foot to take that last step.

There was a darn good reason Edward had been determined to not think of Bella during the past five months, and his failure to do so proved it; she was his forbidden fruit. He'd done the right thing by cutting her out of his life before adopting Jasper. He was sure of it… most of the time. But if the simple act of _thinking_ about Bella was enough to make Edward question his judgment, what would being in the same room as her do?

_You're not expecting anything from her, and she's not expecting anything from you. Be professional, and stop your hands from trembling._

Edward stretched his fingers, then balled them up.

_This isn't a big deal. It's business. Remember, business. Uncomplicated. Impersonal. Easy. And if you start flying off into Bella Bella Land, remind yourself why you can't be with her._

Edward gave a resolved nod for the sixtieth time and marched into Bella's office with all the authority and clout a person of his position demanded. It was empty. Who needed an authoritative march when a relieved sigh felt so much better? Edward performed the latter in earnest and, feeling proactive, took from his jacket the top-of-the-line Digital Radio Frequency Detector, AKA bug finder, he'd picked up from Carmen's desk on the way over. Two of the four radar lights glowed green as soon as he pulled up the wallet-sized device's antenna, indicating the presence of one or more bugs. He made a lap around the office, waving the detector back and forth as he went.

Given the absence of personal effects, it didn't feel like snooping. Only two large, whiteboards covered in Bella's handwriting marked this space as hers. Although the signal all but disappeared in that direction, Edward walked over to the corner where the boards were hanging and poured over what looked like a brainstorming session recorded in dry erase marker. Personality traits were scribbled in bulletin points next to names like Jane, Alec, Felix, and Demetri.

"Of course she was the one to come up with that idea," Edward mumbled, remembering the day Jasper had revealed they were going to utilize the Volturi in the next phase of the game. He'd been taken aback, given Jasper's previous reluctance to reveal his villains.

"That's the genius part of it," Jasper had said. "Aro, Caius, and Marcus are going to stay in Italy, so they remain obscured. It's their henchmen that are going around the world intimidating the players and causing conflict."

Reading Bella's notes gave Edward a boost of confidence in her promotion. No doubt the other outstanding changes in the game over the past few months were to her credit. He'd always known she had it in her to be a great storyteller, if not a writer.

Edward went back to scanning the office, and the detector went into overdrive as he passed her desk. "Of course," he groaned, coming to a halt. He looked over his shoulder at the door. Three minutes had gone by since he'd walked through it, and still no Bella. The chances of her returning while he did something as degrading as crawling under her desk grew exponentially each second he waited; there was nothing to do but get on his knees and vow to make this quick.

"Edward?"

A painful bang, followed by a whimper, answered the call of his name.

"What the hell are you doing under my desk?" Bella asked.

Edward massaged the top of his head. He would have hoped he was made of tougher stuff than a small but painful impact. "I'm looking for something," he said, deciding to finish the search instead of coming up empty-handed and explanation-less.

"Can I help?" Bella asked uncertainly.

"No, thank you. I'll just be a minute."

"Okay." A long pause filled the room, wherein the only sound was Edward's fingers trailing along the wooden underbelly of the desk. "Can I talk while you're under there?"

Humiliation didn't come close to describing the state of his mental well-being. "If you'd like."

"I know Jasper filled you in on everything that happened, but for my own peace of mind, I need to explain. I can't believe I got suckered into this. He was just _so_ convincing. I feel totally worked over. Now that it's happened, I can sit back and see his handiwork. He started off small, with these trips to IHOP. Then it just kept getting bigger and bigger. I didn't even realize what was—"

"You really don't need to explain how Jasper got you to work for him." That bug was being stupidly evasive for an inanimate object. "I was his first victim, remember?"

"I guess that's true. That boy really knows how to pontificate."

"Pontificate," Edward repeated distractedly. "There's a word I can get behind."

"I forgot how much you like words longer than three syllables."

"Aha!" The rigid, plastic box had been located at last. Edward triumphantly crawled out from under the desk and got his first good look at Bella in months. Mostly she looked the same, adhering to the casual dress code all BITE employees were allowed by wearing a blue t-shirt and jeans, but there was a distinct maturity about her now. Here stood a professional, not a college student.

_Why can't I be with her? _

Because Jasper had proved time and time again he needed Edward's undivided attention. Single parenthood was complicated enough without worrying about dating.

"It's not just words," Edward said, standing up to dust off his knees. "I also like puns and the occasional limerick."

"Poems?"

"Not my thing. They try too hard, in my opinion."

Bella cracked a smile, and Edward bit his tongue to keep from doing the same. There was a familiarity he couldn't quite shake, and judging by her expression, neither could Bella. They had slipped back into their old banter far too easily.

_Why can't I be with her? _

Because even if Jasper didn't need to be the sole focus of Edward's attention, there was still a point to prove. Jasper couldn't go around messing with people's lives and expect it to work out the way he wanted. It was a matter of principle.

"What were we talking about?" he asked.

"Everyday vernacular."

"Before that."

"Jasper being quite the salesman."

"Salesman, huh?" Edward tossed the bug to the ground. "Con artist. Swindler. Cheat. I prefer those." The bug felt the vehemence of his statement with a resounding crunch.

"You shouldn't call him names. He's, like, your son now, right?"

"Apparently." Edward waited for her to react… only she didn't. "Get it?"

"Get what?"

"You asked me if Jasper was my kid, and I said, 'Ap-_parent_-ly.' It was punny." Edward cleared his throat. "Never mind. It was stupid."

"Not at all. You just need to work on making your puns more transparent."

Edward scoffed. "I resent the implication."

"Wow, how did you not catch that!" Her outcry rebounded off the walls with the force its gusto. "Trans-_parent._ I thought I was pretty quick on my feet to pull that one out of thin air."

_Why can't I be with her? _

Because even if he waited a few months so that Jasper's antics weren't immediately rewarded, Bella was now a BITE employee and he was her boss. It wouldn't be ethical to pursue a relationship with her outside of work.

"I didn't know you were a punster."

"You learn something new everyday. And today's lesson will be," Bella bent down, swiped the crushed transponder off the floor, and held it up for inspection, "whatever this is."

"It's a listening device Jasper has been using to eavesdrop on you."

Bella's eyes widened to comical proportions. "He is a dirty, rotten cheat."

"Careful now. That's my kid. Only I get to call him that."

"But this is _so _wrong."

"I know—"

"It's a complete invasion of privacy."

"He won't—"

"You know I don't like to backseat parent." Edward smiled despite himself. There were some things five months couldn't change. "But listening in on people's private conversations cannot be Jasper's only hobby, unless you want him to grow up to be a particularly prolific employee of the NSA. He needs to get a life. Because this," Bella held up the bug, "is not healthy behavior."

"I want to offer you Jasper's job."

That shut Bella up for a solid five seconds. "I didn't mean you should fire him, for pity's sake. Have a heart."

"I do have a heart, and you're the one who described it as golden. He's not being fired. He's being demoted." Edward explained about Jasper's new position in the company and how he wanted Bella to take over as lead story developer. "The job comes with a raise. I'll make it worth your while."

Bella stared at him as if he'd grown a third eye. "I can't take this job. I'm under-qualified for the job I have now."

"Jasper's been doing it since he was nine."

"It's different when it's your own creation."

Edward pointed to the whiteboards. "I'm essentially asking you to do what you've been doing for the past three months, only your title will be better and you'll have more money. This is a no-brainer."

"Everyone thought it was a no-brainer for you to adopt Jasper. How long did it take you to come to the same conclusion? And while we're on the subject, I owe you an I-Told-You-So. So… I told you so."

"You've lost me."

"I told you ages ago that you were Miss Honey."

Edward blinked. "If ever there was an award for deflection, you would win two for that feat of topic-bending."

"I'd like to thank the academy and my deadbeat mother for teaching me everything I know," Bella glowed.

_Why can't I be with her? _

Because even if he found a way to morally sanction a work relationship, there was no telling what Bella was feeling right now. For all he knew, she still resented him for everything that had happened the last few months. Or worse—she could be seeing someone else.

"It's not Miss Honey," Edward said. "It's Mr. Brownlow."

"I don't believe I've met him."

Edward primped his suit. "I'm Mr. Brownlow from _Oliver Twist_. You said that if I could find the male equivalent to Miss Honey, you'd stop calling me that."

Bella leaned back against her desk and crossed her arms. "I don't remember saying that."

"You can't fault me for your defective memory. But if you're in the mood to make Jasper a girl after his antics, I'll happily exchange Mr. Brownlow for Jean Valjean from _Les Mis_."

"The book or the musical?"

"Whichever you want. This is your I-Told-You-So."

"It's not the same. The kids in those books were orphans. Adopting Matilda was a choice, not a moral obligation. That's what makes Miss Honey so spectacular."

The way she had said those words made it clear she wasn't talking about Miss Honey at all. Edward hid his gulp by looking down at the RF detector. The signal had died down to a regular frequency.

_Why can't I be with her? _

Because even if Bella still had feelings for him and was single, these things took time. It wasn't like he could just kiss her and everything would be as it was. He needed to woo her, get to know her again.

"Can I have a few days to think through your offer?" Bella asked.

"Hmm? Oh, yes. Absolutely. You should know, though, that I have every confidence you can do this job. I was actually admiring the work you've done with the Volturi before you came in."

"Thanks. I couldn't have done it without you."

"You mean Jasper," Edward corrected. "You couldn't have done it without Jasper."

"No. It was you. There was this one time you breezed right past me when I was trying to say hi. That was the day Jane's power to cause crippling pain with her mind was created. And you don't even want to hear about the incident that led to Kate's electrokinesis. Hell hath no fury and all that."

"I swear, I didn't have a clue. If I had known, I would have… Well, I don't know what I would have done. This conversation would have happened a lot sooner, though."

"You didn't fire me when you found out. That's the important thing. Not that you would have or I was worried you were going to, but I wasn't exactly expecting a promotion when I walked in here. I also wasn't expecting to find your ass sticking out from under my desk." Bella paused. "Today's been a really weird day."

"Indeed," Edward said, almost too caught up in enjoying her ramble to respond.

"Right. You'll have my answer soon, then." Bella held out a hand to him. Edward thought it was for a handshake until he saw the crushed bug. He reached out his palm, and she dropped the mechanism into it. "Unless you have anything else you want to talk about, I guess this is goodbye for now."

Strange. Not an hour earlier Edward had been determined to find closure, but an iron grip around his lungs made it difficult to breathe as he said goodbye. With every step he took toward the door, it tightened.

_Why can't I be with her?_

Because of thousand reasons that didn't make a damn bit of difference. Except that they did.

"There is one more thing," he said, turning around despite himself. "It's not business related."

Bella straightened.

"It's something I've wanted to tell you for a few months but never thought I'd get the chance." The bug restlessly maneuvered its way between his fingers. "It concerns pancakes with ketchup."

Bella's hand stifled her surprise. "Don't tell me you actually…."

"I actuallied."

"And?"

"Nauseating. Every crumb as gross as you'd imagine, times one hundred. I'll admit, after watching Jasper gobble it down year after year, I started to think there might be something to it. There isn't. That boy's taste buds should be studied in a lab."

"What does it taste like?" Bella asked, snickering wildly.

"I can't verify that it tastes like dirt, because I've never eaten dirt."

"I'm happy to hear. Did you eat it all?"

Edward nodded. "I even took a notepad with me to jot down my thoughts, so I wouldn't forget in case we ever… in case I happen to see you around. Turns out, there was no need. The aftertaste lingers to this day."

"That is disgusting." Bella's eyes twinkled the way they always had when Edward made her laugh. It had entranced him back then, and it entranced him now. "I'm surprised you bothered to make good on our deal after we stopped seeing each other."

_Why can't I be with her? _

Because… nothing came to mind.

A weightlessness, similar to the one he'd felt the day he'd decided to adopt Jasper, was working its way through his body. It left him dazed, calm, and a teensy bit giddy. Edward returned her twinkles tenfold. "Us Cullens never back out of a deal."

"So I've heard."

He'd forgotten the exhilaration of talking with Bella, the way his heart felt like it was beating right out of his chest and the goddamn girly butterflies flapping around in his stomach. He'd forgotten the chemistry and the rightness and the sensation of repressing a giggle. "Yes. Well, I'll let you get back to work," he said, cracking the door to leave. This office was intoxicating. Edward needed to get out to breath, to regroup, to form a plan.

"There's something you should be aware of before you leave," Bella said to his back. "Everyone thinks we're doing it."

Edward's hand slipped from the doorknob. "Come again?"

"All the employees, even management—they all think we're sleeping together. They're probably sitting out there, timing this meeting to see how long you can go, if you catch my drift." There wasn't a hint of discomfort in Bella's voice. If anything, she was emboldened. "Don't look so horrified, Edward. How else do you think a recent college graduate, without honors or prior experience, could land a job with this pay grade or office? There's only one explanation besides the actual one."

"Doesn't that bother you?" Edward asked, feeling quite bothered himself.

"I'm used to it by now."

That answer was unsettling. "Do people give you a hard time?"

Bella's gaze dropped to the floor. "They don't say anything to my face."

"Liar."

Her eyes shot up. "Interesting choice of word coming from you."

"Interesting choice of dishonesty coming from you. The Bella I knew hated liars."

"Not all liars. I seem to have a thing for a certain spineless schmuck who hides behind puns and business to avoid a real conversation about how he feels."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you. Who else?"

"What are you trying to say?"

"I'm trying to say that even if you won't own up to it right now, I know how you feel. And I feel the same way."

Edward wanted to pinch himself. Outside of the office thinking Bella was sex for hire, this was playing out like one version of the many conversations he'd imagined since their split and his next line was, "Do you still want to be with me?"

"Yes."

The word was simple, strong, unwavering. The conviction of it caught Edward by surprise, but not nearly as much as when Bella followed it up by strutting over and pinning him against the door with her right hand. "Wh-wh-what are you doing?"

"I'm going to kiss you, Edward Cullen," she said in breathless exhilaration.

Imaginary Bella had never been so forward. The real incarnation was a thousand times sexier. He wanted to give in so badly. "But there are things we have to talk out, things I need to apologize for."

"Shhh. Your mouth is ruining the moment." Bella held a soft finger to his lips.

He spoke against it. "You're ready to jump back in? Just like that?"

"Yes." There was that word again, with all its resolved finality. "Edward, I've been waiting three months for you to look in my direction, so forgive me if I'm overly eager. I know what we had before, and I feel it deeply every time I see you. Stop me, if that's what you want to do, but life is too short to wait for you to grow a pair."

Edward didn't keep her waiting any longer. With the heat of her breath in his face, the pressure of her body against his, and the fact that this was Bella, _the_ Bella of a thousand night and daydreams, what else could he do but swoop down and press his lips against hers? It was a kiss six months in the making, and Edward treated it with every ounce of desire it had earned. In a sentence, it was the agglutination of dualistic organisms suffused with concupiscence and veneration. In a word, it was apocalepic. Edward found the small of Bella's back and pressed her greedily closer. She seemed to do the same, running her hand up his neck and into the lower stands of his hair.

All at once, Bella pulled back and shook her head as if to catch her bearings. "Wait. Wait, Edward," she said, swatting his shoulder to direct his attention away from her lips. "You have to do something for me."

"Anything."

"I've been dreaming about running my hands through your hair since before we met. You have got to get rid of the gel."

"Done," Edward said, leaning back in.

She held him off. "And the suit? It's not you."

"It's gone, too."

"And about the diet—"

"You can have whatever you want, Bella, but there's too much talking right now."

Bella grinned. "Consider it one of the pitfalls of dating me."

"Not at all." Edward brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and rested his forehead against hers. "Your big mouth is the reason I fell for you in the first place."

"I get what you're saying," Bella whispered. "But that sounded so dirty."

"Yeah, I talk too much, too. It's a condition. We should get help."

"Shut up and kiss me."

"I think I can manage that."

"And yet you're still talking."

"So are you."

"You're right. We should get help. Now, for real, shut up and kiss me."

Edward didn't need to be told three times.

_**. . .**_

Jasper's pen tapped a discordant rhythm over the lined paper intended for Bella's apology letter. How had Edward expected him to get anything done when it was killing him to be stuck in this room, blind and deaf to everything going on within his company—_his _company—which Edward had ripped from Jasper's grasp without so much as a modicum of guilt?

The pen dropped gracelessly to the desk as Jasper crept over to the office's double doors and opened one to find Carmen giving him the death glare. She pointed her index and middle fingers at her eyes, then back at Jasper. She was watching him. He shut the door with a shudder.

For the first time in his life, Jasper had been reamed a new one and acquired a whole set of stringent rules, neither of which he had a clue of how to deal with. He slouched over to Edward's desk and sagged back into the seat, utterly dejected, and opened the desk drawer to the picture Bella had made. Grains of sand tickled his fingertips as he stroked the same thinning lines he stroked whenever he was alone in Edward's office. They looked happy in the picture; they were a family.

If—_if_—Edward found a way to be with Bella, Jasper swore he'd never lie or manipulate again. In fact, he'd bear a hundred more punishments. It would be well worth it for That Place. When he grew up, he was going to have Edward's vocabulary, Bella's imagination, and Emmett's knack for getting out of trouble unscathed.

All in all, Jasper C. Cullen was one fucky genius.


	9. A Lesson in Audacity

Not an Epilogue, Just a Happily Ever After: _A Lesson in Audacity_

_**. . .**_

For his first day of high school, Jasper had requested to arrive in a limo, Richie Rich-style. Instead, he pulled up in the back seat of Edward's Volvo, accompanied by a brief lecture regarding humility. A stoic reticence had subdued the usually self-assured boy, a side-effect Edward suspected had more to do with nerves than the aforementioned lecture.

"It's about that time," Edward said, tapping his thumbs against the steering wheel.

Jasper didn't budge. "I need a minute."

In the passenger seat was Bella, empathy at the ready when Edward looked to her for help. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"No."

Bella clearly had not expected to be rejected outright. "Okay, then."

"Try again," Edward mouthed.

"You try," Bella mouthed back.

"I talked the whole way over here."

Bella sighed and slipped back into her compassionate voice. "Jasper, honey, it's okay to feel insecure on your first day of high school, doubly so when you're younger than everyone else in—"

"Can you guys, like, pretend to talk to each other to keep yourselves busy?"

"If that will make you feel better, sure." Bella turned to Edward and opened her mouth. "Wait a minute. Did you want us to pretend like we're talking, or did you want us to come up with a pretend subject to talk about?"

"Good question," Edward said. "One way, you'll get exaggerated mouthing and wild gesticulation; the other opens you up to a world of endless conversation starters."

"Personally, I'd either go with the probable annihilation of BITE, Inc. under our management," Bella said. "Or the current collection of Greek and Roman antiquities at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna."

"Your annunciation of Kunsthistorisches was stunning."

"_Grazie_. Bring your cheek to my face."

Edward did as Bella demanded and was rewarded with a kiss.

"You mock my pain," Jasper grumbled.

"If anyone should be in pain here, it's Edward. His little boy is all grown up and headed to high— Ahhh!" A knock on Bella's window scared the bejesus out of her. Her hand hovered over her heart as she calmed her breathing.

Edward rolled down the rain-spotted window to a petite girl wearing the oddest piece of clothing he'd ever seen: a pink and grey hoodie with cat ears sticking out of the top. The porcelain pale girl looked around Jasper's age and was very pretty, interesting wardrobe and all. "Hi! I'm here to collect Jasper," she said, leaning in.

"Excellent." Edward couldn't quite place it, but there was something oddly familiar about this girl. "And who are you?"

"I'm Mary."

"Hear that, Jasper? Your friend Mary is going to escort you into the school."

Jasper looked bewildered. "I don't know who that is," he whispered.

Bella came to his rescue. "How do you know Jasper?"

"I don't," Mary said in a brazenly chipper cadence. "Word on the Web is that he's the only other freshman my age. I did some digging, and it turns out we both skipped seventh grade, but we went to different middle schools so I haven't met him yet.

"God, no," Edward said under his breath. "Two stalkers does not a good match make."

"Hush, you," Bella warned. "Don't ruin this for Jasper. He can use a friend, and she's a sweetie."

"My mom says I spend more time on the Internet than Vint Cerf. That's the inventor of the Internet, in case you didn't know," Mary prattled on over their whispered conversation. "There is just _so_ much information out there. I know everything there is to know about you two, too. You're Mr. Cullen, the CEO of BITE, Inc. and Jasper's new father. There were literally thousands of search results under your name. And you're Ms. Swan. You wrote an article about Mr. Cullen for _The Spectator_ that I read. It was awesome."

Bella turned back to Edward, and there was fear in her eyes. "Drive. Now."

"I'm taking a poll. Would you like to participate?"

"I thought you were here to pick up Jasper," Edward said, looking behind his shoulder. Jasper vehemently shook his head and gave the universal sign for crazy.

"He'll come when he's ready," Mary said confidently. "While we're waiting, will you help me out with my poll?"

"I guess," Bella said. "What's your poll on?"

"Since high school's about reinvention, I'm debating going by my middle name instead of my first name. I've been going back and forth all summer, but it's really down to the wire now. As soon as the teacher calls out roll in my first class, I have to either stick with Mary or give him my new nickname."

"And the name in question is?" Edward asked.

"Alice."

An eerie silence fell over the car as the amused faces of the front seat occupants transformed to those of perplexity.

"Bye," Jasper said, practically falling over himself to get unbuckled. As soon as he was outside, he one-shouldered his backpack and started laying it on thick. "What search engine do you use? I don't know if your research showed it, but I'm quite handy with a browser, too. I know everyone thinks Google's all the rage, but have you ever tried…"

Long after Jasper and his new friend had disappeared into the hustle and bustle of the student population, Edward turned on the ignition.

"What do you know about reincarnation?" he asked, backing out carefully.

"Only what I learned when my mother went through her Taoism phase."

"Is it possible for a computer to come back as a teenage girl?"

"I would say no, but there's also this sick part of me that wants to go back to your house and dig up Alice's grave to make sure she's still there."

"That is sick."

"As if you aren't thinking the same thing."

"I'm not opposed to going back to the house. But I'd rather do other things."

Bella lifted an eyebrow. "Such as?"

"We can get to That Place."

"I thought we were already at That Place."

"We are, but there's another, more special place I'd like to be in."

Edward's favorite sound in the world, Bella's laughter, filled the Volvo. "Drive fast, Mr. Cullen."

.

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**A/N:** The idea for this story began about three years ago when xsecretxkeeperx said, "I have a plot bunny I'll never use. Alice is a computer." I jumped on that before she could even finish her thought, and claimed it as mine. She then worked with me to develop the idea into a full-fledged story, solidifying herself in the Beta Hall of Fame. I cannot thank her enough for her devotion to all of my stories. Through the Twi-fandom she has become one of my best friends and an invaluable asset to my writing process.

I also owe a big thank you to MariahajilE for lending an extra pair of beta eyes to make this story perfect and time_lights for creating my gorgeous banner. Lastly, I want to thank all of the reviewers who sent me their thoughts. Loved it or hated it, long or short, Team Jasper or Team Bella, I enjoyed and appreciated every single one.


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